Exclusive Interview With The Registrar Of Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria on The Menance Of “Quackery”

Alhaji Faruk Umar is the
Registrar, Nursing and Midwifery
Council of Nigeria. In this
interview, he speaks on the need
to establish more schools of
nursing and midwifery in the
North, the regulatory activities of
the council, and the use of
auxiliary nurses in hospitals,
among others.
Question 1
Can you tell us the number of
nursing and midwifery schools in
the country?*
Answer 1
There are about 209 of them
regulated by the Nursing and
Midwifery Council of Nigeria.
There are 126 schools in the south
and 83 in the north.
The total approved slots  in the
209 schools is about 8,485.  Out of
this number, 4,995 is from the
South while 3,490 is from the
northern part of the country.
Twenty-five schools are
embargoed in the south and two
in the north.
It is no gain saying that the
southern part of the country is
more advanced in terms of
Western education and has more
schools of nursing and midwifery.
The council is ready to accredit
more schools of nursing and
midwifery. The admission quota
has been increased to 100, and is
based on how an institution meets
the requirements including
having a hospital, manpower and
infrastructure and other
guidelines.
There is need for northern states
to establish more schools of
nursing and midwifery. This
would help provide the needed
manpower for healthcare in the
states, complement government
efforts as well as bridge the gap
between the number of nursing
and midwifery institutions in the
southern part of the country
compared to the north.
If any state is interested in
establishing a new school of
nursing and midwifery, we give it
the guidelines, and if it meets up,
there is nothing that will stop the
council from giving the institution
accreditation. Also any state that
makes request for 50 admission
slots for instance, in an
institution, we will assess it based
on the availability of man power
and infrastructure and if it meets
the requirements, we give the
allocation.
There is need for more nurses
and midwives to work in the
communities, and this can only be
achieved when more indigenes
are trained through the
institutions in their areas.
There is also need for well to do
individuals and faith
organizations in the north to
establish hospitals which would in
turn help in the establishment of
Nursing and Midwifery
institutions.
Only Kaduna, Benue and Kogi
have faith based Nursing and
Midwifery institutions while those
in the remaining 16 northern
states are all owned by the
government. This is unlike the
southern part of the country
where some are owned by faith
based organizations.
Question 2
What is the number of registered
nurses and midwives in the
country?
Answer 2
As at the middle of June this year,
we had 173,574 registered nurses
and 114, 468 midwives in our
register. So if you add them
together, that will give you 288,
042 registered nurses and
midwives in our register. The
numbers continues to grow on
daily basis as more people
register.
In terms of the training, an
average of about 5,699 nursing
( general nursing and post basic
nursing) are produced annually
while about 2, 696 midwives (this
includes basic, post basic and
community midwifery) are
produced averagely annually. So
if you add them together, you will
have an average of about 8,395
nurses and midwives produced
annually in the country.
It also depends on the numbers of
nurses and midwives that
registered for exams because we
usually have exams four times in
a year, two for general nursing
and two for midwifery.
Question 3
What is the criteria for denying a
school of nursing and midwifery
accreditation?
Answer 3
We have a check list for
accrediting institution, such as
man power, infrastructure,
library, transport utility services,
hostel accommodation  to mention
a few.
Any institution that cannot score
50% from the checklist, loses
accreditation. Some institutions
lost accreditation because they
lack a hospital; you need both
theoretical and practical training.
The hospital should also be worthy
to provide training. The hospital
should have nothing less than 250
beds.
Many private hospitals in the
country particularly small ones
utilize the services of auxiliary
nurses. Does your organization
regulate them?
There is nothing like auxiliary
nursing. When you say auxiliary
nurse, it refers to a quack. We
don’t recognize them and they are
a threat to the health of
Nigerians, and the nursing
profession in the country.
As far as we are concerned, any
hospital operating with auxiliary
nurses, is operating with quack
nurses, because they are quacks.
They are not competent, to
deliver nursing care and
members of the public that access
services from such hospitals are
doing so at their own risk.
Hospitals are supposed to ensure
that nurses are qualified,
registered and licensed to practice
as nurses. If you want to set up a
hospital, you send the list of
nurses to our organization, we
then send our officers to verify,
because we have verification
offices which verify whether a
person is qualified to practice or
not.
Also trained nurses are issued
practicing licenses. A practicing
licensed lasts for a period of three
years, and before the expiration
,the nurse is expected to undergo
a mandatory development
program which is attached with a
two credit unit. You must attend it
before your license is renewed
after three years, at least then
your knowledge is updated and
you will have the current skills to
improve your capacity and
productivity at the hospital level.
http://www.healthinfocorner.com
Question 4
Do you have any penalty for some
of these hospitals employing them
because even some big hospitals
employ them as their salaries are
usually a lot smaller than those of
qualified nurses?
Answer 4
Of course there are penalties
because the law clearly states that
if you employ somebody who is
unqualified, you are liable to be
charged to the court of law. Even
if you employ or practice as a
quack , you are also liable to be
punished under the Act of the
Nursing and Midwifery Council of
Nigeria.www.healthinfocorner.wo
rdpress.com
Question 5
Some hospitals claim they train
the auxiliary nurses on the
rudiments of nursing. Some
doctors who also work in public
hospitals and own private clinics,
leave the care of Nigerians to
these auxiliary nurses after
‘training’ them?
Answer 5
It is an illegal training because
they don’t have the power to train
them as nurses. A doctor in a
hospital has no power to train a
nurse. Nursing is an independent
profession that cannot be trained
by another profession, and we
have our own ethics.
If a doctor establishes a hospital
and begins to train people on
nursing, he has bridged the law of
nursing in this country.
One of the council’s major
challenges is the lack of man
power. With enough manpower,
we will go round to check all the
clinics and hospitals.
We have been trying to
strengthen our six zonal offices
basically to check these domains
and report to us. We will then
liaise with relevant security
agencies to crush the quack
nurses.
Also, the council’s act has
provided that at the state level,
the directors of nursing services
are the state directors of nursing
and midwifery committee which
is empowered by the Nursing and
Midwifery Council to control
nursing activities within the state
level.
So it is within their domain to
check the excesses of these
hospitals, and if they see that
something has gone wrong, they
should report to us.
We are working towards
partnering with relevant security
agencies to flush out these quacks.
We will soon embark on
‘Operation show your license at
both the private and the public
sectors’ and will charge those
found wanting.
Question 6
What are you doing to reposition
the council?
Answer 6
The Nursing and Midwifery
Council of Nigeria is under the
Federal Ministry of Health, and
responsible for regulating nursing
education and practices in the
country.
I am trying to ensure that the
statutory responsibilities of the
council are up to date. I am also
working towards strengthening
services to ensure it is effective
and productive, in terms of the
accreditation of institutions.
I also ensure that practicing
licenses are issued on time, and
ensure mandatory continuous
vocation development program so
that nurses and midwives have
current and update knowledge in
line with global norms.
We are trying to strengthen our
activities so that more schools of
nursing have manpower
development, and infrastructural
development so that they can
increase their slots.
Question 7
Do you find problems with
Nigerians who study nursing and
midwifery abroad or even in
other West African countries,
when they come to practice in the
country?
Answer 7
We don’t have issues as far as
foreign training is concerned but
we regulate to ensure that the
person is competent, and capable
of delivering nursing care in
conformity to the norms and
ethics of the Federal Republic of
Nigeria. Then we register and
licensed you to practice.
If you are trained outside this
country, it is not within our
requirement to regulate the
institution but first and foremost,
we find out if the university you
are trained in is accredited by the
Federal Ministry of Education .
If the institution is not accredited
by the Federal Ministry of
Education, we don’t have any
legal right to accept such a person
into our own process.
Secondly, we expect the
institution where you are trained
to send your transcript to us, we
will now request the ministry of
education to interpret if it’s a
French country, the Ministry of
Education will interpret and tell
us the status of that particular
training.
There are two categories. For the
first category, there are countries
that have regulatory bodies like
ours, if you undergo training in a
country that has a regulatory
body, and have been registered
and licensed in that particular
county, then we will set an exam
and interview for you. We then
send you to any of the hospitals of
your choice for three months’
orientation so that you acquaint
yourself with the norms and rules
of the Nigerian system.
For the second category, all
countries with regulatory bodies
on nursing are all members of the
International Council of Nurses,
ICN. So if you train in a country
where there is no regulatory
body, then the training is not
within the global acceptable
norms.
We send such persons to any
school of nursing of their choice
in the country so that they have
orientation in the hospitals
affiliated to the schools. They are
supervised for 18 months and
thereafter seat for examinations.
If they pass, we then register
them as nurses to work in Nigeria.
Source Daily trust
By Ojoma Akor & Aisha Mujeli