It was Franz Fanon who said, and I quote: "Each generation must out of relative obscurity discover its mission; either to fulfil it or to betray it."

 

I have been at great pains in coming to terms with the rationale behind the unholy alliance between BSc Nurses and JOHESU. My mental torture stems from the fact that these fine breed of health professionals have been greatly abused, used, taken for a ride and unjustly treated by the other constituents of the amalgam called JOHESU.

 

An indept analysis of the status quo with relevant hard-core, cast iron, rock-hard, incontrovertible facts will help buttress the above submission.

 

A BSc nurse spends a solid 5 years in the University; some spend longer years due to accreditation issues and of course incessant strike actions, after which they go for the compulsory Youth Service. Only to be placed on the same salary scale with a green nurse who spends just 2 years and 6 months in a nursing school. And in most instances these green nurses are bereft of the statutory O level 5 credits. 

 

BSc nurses are placed on level 8 while their counterparts in the health profession(Med lab, radiography, pharmacy, rehab) are placed on level 10. BSc nurses have been unjustly deprived of the post graduation 1 year internship programme which the other JOHESUites enjoy.

 

So pathetic and most disheartening is the fact that the other JOHESUites have been vehemently opposed to the inclusion of BSc nurses in the Internship Scheme.

 

In some states, a BSc nurse corp member gets a miserable token of #7000 as state allowance and he/she works almost round the clock in the designated health institution. Whereas a lab scientist (corp member)  who strolls in by 9AM and leaves by 2PM gets a relatively mind burgling sum of #37,000.

This is repugnant to equity, good conscience and natural justice.

 

If at all any of the allied health professionals can be described as indispensable, Nurses most certainly fit that description of indispensability in the health team. They own the patients in the wards.

 

Little wonder JOHESU stops at nothing in courting their alliance in their relentless and unbridled and unchecked reign of terror and 'Jihad' in the health sector. 

 

For indeed, all JOHESU strikes will go unnoticed like a grain of sand dropped into the atlantic save for the coerced accomplice they get from nurses. Ample evidence lend credence to this fact.

 

Their enormous significance notwithstanding, Nurses have willfully contented themselves with the second fiddle role in JOHESU. Allowing the laboratory scientists and other disenchanted and disgruntled elements in JOHESU to lord and use them as tools and means in their depraved, mundane, banal, pecuniary, selfish, and unbriddled morbid quest for unhealthy rivalry and futile comparison.

 

Indeed, it is high time BSc nurses took a bold step. Pull out of the ongoing strike, while simultaneously riding themselves of the canker called JOHESU. BSc nurses should rise gallantly and assume their pride of place amongst the comity of health professionals.

 

All stake holders should rise bravely against this unwholesome, albeit reckless injustice against these deligent, exceptional, meticulous and dedicated fine breed of health professionals, while simultaneously putting an end to JOHESU's reign of impunity.

 

For injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere!

 

I rise.

 

Dr Ogbu Nathaniel

Enugu, Nigeria

07039040488