By Daniel Ayantoye
A Former Director of the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria (NMCN), Mrs. Kofoworola Koyejo has said that private hospitals have become breeding grounds for quack nurses.
She added that majority of practising nurses in non-public health facilities do not meet up with professional standard of the council.
She stated these while delivering a paper on the topic: Professional Examination for Nurses and Midwives: The Place of Objectivity in Measurement and Evaluation’ at the opening ceremony of 2017 Nurses Examiners Workshop held at the Kwara State Banquet Hall in Ilorin recently.
Koyejo also explained that lack of quality evaluation in school most time leads to failure of students at the professional examination level, urging evaluators to live up to expectations and above board.
“The purpose of the professional examinations is to identify persons who possess the minimum necessary knowledge in practising.
“Some evaluators when you send them for assessment get carried away by the level of hospitality and reception received and so won’t do the needful.
“To be objective means, you must be knowledgeable in the area of practice, expose to regular update of knowledge, involved in the teaching of students, committed and willing to learn, conversant with curriculum and procedure manual, you must be familiar with the instruments used for assessment and must not be judgmental or prejudiced but fair and firm,” she added.
Similarly, the Kwara State Director of Nursing Services, Jacob Oladele Aransiola, who corroborated the assertion that quack nurses are being trained and employed in private health institutions, called for synergy between state governments in the federation and the NMCN to tackle the practice.
“The act of quackery is on the increase and the overall effect of this parasite does more harm than good. The worse situation is even that quacks are being trained and employed in private health institutions to the detriment of the innocent citizenry in order to maximise profit.
In the same vein, the Chairman of NMCN Governing council, Dr. Bola Abosede Ofi condemned the involvement of Heads of Department and principals in examination malpractice enjoined examiners to carry out their role with sense of responsibility, fairness and decorum.
Meanwhile, the Kwara State Government has said that it is in the forefront in the fight against quacks in the health sector.
The state Commissioner for Health, Alhaji Suleiman Atolagbe Alege, who made the disclosure in an interview with Pilot Health, noted that there is effective monitoring to completely eradicated the practice.
