The preventive and environmental health care management system says a lot about disease control. Experts are of the view that the subsector holds much prospect for nurses and midwives in Nigeria. They say this is the time for such workers to tap the opportunities in the area, writes AKINOLA AJIBADE
FOR nurses and midwives, a window of opportunities has opened up in preventive and environmental health care system.
The former focuses on disease prevention and health maintenance. It includes early diagnosis of diseases, discovery and identification of people at the risk of development of specific problems and counselling, among other interventions that could help in averting health problems.
The latter has to do with keeping the environment hygenic to prevent the outbreak of dieseases, such as cholera and diarrhea.
Experts argue that there are not enough health care professionals to work in these areas. They said health care service providers, such as nurses and midwives, have restricted themselves to hospital jobs where they work on schedules. They said many nurses and midwives are jobless because of their regimented lifestyle.
They said the Red Cross, United Nations Children Education Fund(UNICEF) and a host of other international organisations do employ people to work as preventive and environmental health care providers, advising nurses to key-into these opportunties.
A Nursing Consultant, Larry Obadan, said there are a lot of opportunities for nurses in preventive and environmental health care system, arguing that many countries are showing deep interest in these areas.
He said: “ The world is moving towards preventive and environmental health care system. The developed ouuntries are showing more than a passing interest in these areas by providing a lot of money to tackle diseases.
“Also, the developing nations are aware of the importance of environmental healthcare management.These are the opportunities, which thousands of unemployed nurses can tap into to earn a living.”
He said the field and allied areas could provide jobs for between 500,000 and 600,000 nurses, adding that there are immense opportunities in nursing.
He said nurses and midwives, who long to work as preventive healthcare officers, should move from house to house to tell people on how to manage their health, while those that are ready to offer environmental health care services need go to rural areas to do the job.
He said Nigeria needs more than a million nurses and midwives to manage the primary health care system, stressing that there is a shorfall in the number of nurses in the country.
Obadan, who is a legal practitioner and Labour Consultant, said there is a lot of mis-match in the medical profession in Nigeria, arguing that the development has affected nurses negatively.
He alleges that doctors are frustrating efforts being put in place to employ staff nurses in Nigeria.
“From investigation, doctors are employing auxillary nurses and midwives to work for them. They parade them as qualified officers, thereby jeopardising the chances of the trained nurses.
Besides, the country is battling shortage of nurses and midwives, making it impossible to develop the primary healthcare system,” he said.
A don at the Department of Nursing Science, College of Medicine at the University of Lagos (CMUL), Prof Boluwaji Fajimilehin, corroborated this assertion, saying the country’s 240, 000 qualified nurses and midwives are not enough.
Fajimilehin said 136,000 of these are not registered, implying that many are working without regulatory approval. He said the country does not have enough nurses and midwives to cater for the sick.
Citing data from a private outfit – the Integrated Human Resources Information System (iHRIS) – Fajimilehin said two or three nurses are made to work in a 30-bed ward in the morning, one or two in the afternoon, and only one at night. This, he said, requires employing more workers for the health industry.
Also, a Matron with the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the problems associated with the health care delivery system are enormous and therefore require more hands. She said nurses and midwives are in short supply globally, adding that Nigeria is not an exception.
She said there are opportunities for people to work as professionals, auxiliary, dental or primary health care nurses and midwives.
The source said people who have the qualifications would get jobs, in view of the openings in the sector.
Her words: “There are a lot of job opportunities in the health sector. First, the issue of ageing nurses and midwives have opened up job prospects for people. Secondly, many of such workers are due for retirement. Thirdly, some have retired and need to be replaced with younger and stronger workers. Fourthly, many have travelled to Canada, among other countries, for better conditions of service.
“The development suggests that more nurses and midwives are needed in the country.”
She added: “The time has come for people to show more interest in nursing by taking it as a profession. They can do this by studying nursing at the university level to get more exposure on it. Holders of a Bachelor of Science in Nursing are going to have an edge in the labour market over those with only School of Nursing Certificates.
“People must develop interest in nursing from the beginning, if they want to achieve success. When this happens, the country would have enough nurses and midwives to work with and further reduce the pressure on the labour market.”
She advised people to go for career talks to know their areas of specialisation in nursing science, adding that each area has the capacity to provide jobs for practitioners.
“There are various cadres of nurses and midwives ditto job opportunities. Many are unemployed now because the government does not create the enabling environment for the healthy sector. The best thing for the government to do is to employ more workers in the healthcare delivery segment. The Federal Government has not done much in this area. The Lagos State government is trying its best to take nurses and midwives out of the employment market. Once efforts are geared toward the creation of jobs for medical practitioners, the better for their families and the economy in particular,” she said.
Also, a Nursing Consultant, Mrs Adenike Amao, said the country was yet to comply with the World Health Organisation’s (WHO’s) directive of one nurse to a maximum of 10 patients. Mrs Amao said a nurse or a midwife attends to a minimum of 100 people in Nigeria, arguing that they were being overworked.
She said Nigeria’s health care delivery system is poor, going by the WHO Report on 57 countries facing critical shortage of health workers.
She said: “The report indicates that Nigeria’s shortage has increased three times from 44,000 in 2006. This would be the seventh highest shortage of the 57 crisis countries. Giving this, the country has a shortage of over 130,000 workers, a development that is not good enough for a country that is planning to attain the goal of Health for All by 2015. For Nigeria to attain that goal, the government must employ medical practitioners, in addition to the provision of infrastructure for the sector.”
According to her, Nigeria must clear the deficit first before it can achieve meaningful growth in the area of healthcare services.
“After clearing the deficit of over 130,000 workers, the government still needs to employ more hands to foster growth. By my estimation, Nigeria would need about a million nurses to achieve growth. The reason is because there are many towns and villages that are finding difficult to have access to qualified nurses and midwives. In those areas, people patronise fake health service providers. This has resulted in untimely death”, she said.
