After 19 years of waiting by successive sets of the Department of Nursing, the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria (NMCN) has approved an internship programme for the Enugu State University of Science and Technology (ESUT) Teaching Hospital, Parklane, Enugu.

MMCN also approved the indexing of Nursing students at the Colleges of Nursing and the former School of Nursing, Awgu, which was recently upgraded to the College of Nursing.
The approvals were announced by the registrar of the council, Dr. Faruk Umar Abubakar, when he led a delegation of the Council’s accreditation team on a courtesy visit to Governor Peter Mbah at the Government House, Enugu, where he equally commended the Mbah administration for providing the requisite infrastructure at the Colleges of Nursing, Park Lane and Awgu to create a conducive environment for teaching and learning, while also paying attention to the welfare of health workers.

Abubakar announced the council’s approval for the immediate recruitment of 50 interns to work at Park Lane, noting that with the approval of the internship programme, more graduate nurses would now be trained at the ESUT University Teaching Hospital to boost the state’s nursing manpower.
“When you train nurses in Nigeria, they are specialists in Midwifery, General Nursing and Public Health and the internship program will strengthen the health sector,” he stated.

He lauded Governor Mbah for approving the implementation of the Consolidated Health Salary Structure (CONHESS), the latest salary structure for Nurses, noting that with such a show of commitment, the state could retain a lot of its nursing manpower as they qualify.

“Good salaries, infrastructure provision, human resources, and employment of quality nurses will help reduce migration of Nurses.
So, I am very optimistic that with what you are doing in the state’s health sector, the environment will be so conducive and ‘japa syndrome’ will drastically reduce,” he added.

While thanking the MNMC for the approvals, Governor Mbah, who was represented by the Secretary to the State Government, Prof Chidiebere Onyia, regretted the stagnation of the state’s nursing institutions for the past 19 years. He noted, however, that his administration decided to wade in strongly through massive investment in the health and nursing space.
“We were clear from the outset that something consequential had to happen in the nursing space in terms of infrastructure, manpower training, remuneration, and motivation. We cannot possibly grow our economy from $4.4 billion to $30 billion if we do not get the health sector right.

“Let me also assure you that the gaps you have further identified will be given utmost attention. We will not play around with your recommendations,” he assured.
Meanwhile, to clarify the development, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Health Matters, Dr Yomi Jaye, described the approvals as “a monumental breakthrough.”

“You know, this struggle started immediately after the governor came into office and discovered that there were many accreditation gaps in the School of Nursing among other healthcare institutions in the state.

“So, for 19 years, the NMCN first sited the department of nursing, our student-nurses from ESUT were not indexed, and they have not been writing professional examinations to qualify as nurses. One breakthrough now is that, as the registrar said, all of them will be indexed. All backlogs will be cleared so that there won’t be any backlogs by next year. This is what had been standing for 19 years. So, our young Ndi Enugu, it’s exam time. Governor Peter Mbah has cleared the way,” he said.