OPEN LETTER TO ALL NURSES OVER JOHESU STRIKE BY Odunola Olaiitan Ojo

Good day my professional colleagues, this will be the first time of posting on this great platform. Since the beginning of the just suspended strike I have been reading lots of comments from nurses , especially this time when we feel disappointed about the just suspended strike, comments like ‘ what are we gaining from JOHESU’ , ‘ they took bribe’ , ‘ oh they are using Nurses’….e.t.c and all these prompted me decide to give few suggestions from my little experience and observations around, hoping Nurses will learn from it.

1. Nurses need to be change agents in every spheres of healthcare and how can we achieve this we need to CHANGE OUR ATTITUDE TO WORK,this is very important, most nurses take their procedures with levity and all laziness, thereby allowing doctors to hijack some procedures from us and unknowingly to us we are losing our values , dignity, public respect( I have read things like we are indispensable, yes its true but how many pricedures do we have left). I wouldn’t want to mention names but I will make reference to the hospital where I did my midwifery training, I learnt a lot and became so relevant because of the matrons tireless efforts at guiding our midwifery procedures jealously and defiantly, they stood their ground because they know without these procedures we will just be on-lookers in the labour room with all certificates. Nurses need to stand up, tell yourselves you are going to work, prepare your body , do your work as expected of you , dont wait for anybody to instruct, when we are PROACTIVE, nobody will order you around, and the few unruly ones you can put them in their places. NOBODY will rubbish you, I know of some nurses and matrons that nobody can rubbish because they know what they are doing.

I want to emphasize more that YOUNG NURSES we need to buckle up and be up and doing PLEASE, I have had opportunities to listen to peoples complaints about nurses whenever I post about nurses on my WhatsApp you need to hear those remarks ‘ nurses are rude, aggressive, lazy, abusive, inhuman, e.t.c. Ask yourselves are you not fitting into those remarks, are you not the type of nurse that knows the best reply for every comments your patient make.Are you not the nursectgat is only after documentation, not your patient. I know patients could be unappreciative sometimes, just do your best and leave the rest, not doing what you can do in the spirit of EYESERVICE, so that matron can like you, meanwhile you are deceiving her. The public are not seeing that caring attitude of ours, and the professionalism of nurses, i ve been asking myself that why are the public not really fighting for us because they dont really know what we are doing ,they our work depends on doctors, and are saying to themselves why are we asking for equity then, that is why some of us need to keep explaining daily. Put everything you learnt in school into practice.
2. I think its high time NANNM and NMCN work together and affiliate all schools of nursing to university, make all post basic schools post graduate schools. Another problem of Nursing is hospital based training, let it become University based and you will see the change. A person who will be vast will be.

3. Another key aspect is OUR ASSERTIVENESS, very important , know your boundary and limits. Comport yourself well, build your self esteem, lift your shoulder high. I had to correct a post with the beginning ‘ I waited 3 years for MBBS, before going to nursing school’, the article was great, but I think some informations are not for public hearing, we all have different goals but a comment like this will register in the mind of people like ‘so is people that can’t do medicine that study nursing’ and its not true. I know many nurses that score higher than medical students in JAMB. They have all it takes but chose Nursing. If we pull out of JOHESU, how many nurses can address the public. How many nurses even take time to educate their family, friends, and others at one point or the other about their health, this is one of the way of making nursing relevant. People dont know nurses have good knowledge about health. Involvement in politics too is very key. Election is on its way is an avenue of making our voices heard. Power is also key.
Thank you all for reading.