Welcome Address presented by the National president of the National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives (NANNM) Nurse Abdrafiu Alani Adeniji at the opening ceremony of the 6th Quadrennial National delegates conference holding at Atlantis centre, Oshogbo state of osun on the 25th October 2016

 

Protocol

With praise and adoration to the almight Allah the supreme, i feel highly delighted to welcome you to this great occasion in my capacity as the president of this noble professional association. Today, another landmark event is been witnessed. Being part of this occasion is not by accident but a divinely ordained occurrence

 

To our esteemed guests, we are greatly indebted to you for sparing your time to grace our four yearly fiesta and celebration despite your tight schedules

 

This dignified happening marks the end of an era and the begining of another. In actual fact, a new chapter is about to be opened in the history of our great Association. Everything that has beginning must surely have an end. The journey of past four years which started in the glory of all lands (yenegoa) the bayelsa state capital has witnessed trials and travail, fear and hope, smoothness and roughness; sadness and joyous circumstances that have impacted severally and differently on our lives

 

I want to thank God for granting us journey mercies to this occasion

 

And so, i welcome you all to this serene environment of oshogbo 'the land of virtue' with her very rich cultural heritage 

 

The theme for this years conference; 'Nursing Education in Contemporary Nigeria's Education System: Issues and Challenges' is very apt

 

During the paper presentatins by highly proficient and erudite scholars on very scintillatin topics, chosen with a view to improving the services of our members to our clients, delegates we must have gained maximally. In deed this is an opportunity for professional discuss, cross fertilzation of ideas, learning techniques and acquiring new skills as well as scientific rational on the new trends and latest application of modern services delivery. These aside, there are opportunities to explore nature, interact meaningully and involvement of socialy acceptable norms and conforming favorably to tenents of paradigm shift

 

Colleagues, you are advised to take advantage of this conference to prepare yourselves for greater challenges ahead and succinctly take your pride of place in the vastly changing and dynamic phenomenon and particularly in the prevailing effect of sustainable development goals, even though our pst efforts were neither recognized nor remunerated. This explained why nurses are grouped with others not treated as a professional with appropriate skills, and body of knowledge. May God forgive those who have deliberately or otherwise contributed to the under development of nursing in Nigeria

 

Let the benefits of this conference radiate through you to the consumers of our unique services

 

Ladies and gentlement, the eagle is a rare bird and so whenever you have the opportunity of coming very close to it, you just have to pluck as much of its feathers as possible because you do not know when next you will have such opportunity. The presence of the highly respected personalities in our midst is a rare opportunity

 

And so your excellency, executive governor, Hon Minister sirs, as i welcome you to our 6th quadrennial delgates conference, i implore you to spare us some of your time to enable us present before you, the following issues;

 

1. Lack of infrastructure and working tools or facilites

All most all the health institutions/ hosptials, in the country lacks adequate infrastructural and functional equipment and appropriate maintenance culture. The implication of this, is that qualified health professional (Nurses and Midwives) do not have the necessary equipment to work with, it is obvious that where there are no enough, the little will attract scrambling for and would eventually bring conflict among the users with the attendant consequences of poor healthcare delivery and clients dissatisfactions

 

2. Incursion into the duties of Nurses/Midwives by other health profession

The leaderhsip of teaching hosptial has deliberately planned to disallow midwives from conducting antenatal clinic and taking delivery in the maternity ward. In some health facilities Midwives are barred from conducting ANC, palpation etc and this development is unhealth one capable of truncating a fragile relationship with health professionals

 

A qualified midwife, certified to practice midwifery in Nigeria is disallowed to perform the job she knew to do best, how can there be peace in such environment. How can maternal mortality be abated despite the evidence drawn from the impact made by midwives sercive scheme in the drastic reduction of MMR

 

It is also disheartening to know that there are hospitals where general nurses are prevented from performing their trained and legitimate duties as inscribed in training curriculum and scheme of service. Very appaling, there are some key nurse specialist that are been deprived of discharing their core competencies in the federal teaching hospitals. Whereas their counterpart are the ones doing similar professional duties with good outcome and does not compromise safety and quality of care at secondary and primary health are level and even when in private practice. These occurrences of professional duties deprivation have been discovered to be baseless and have no scientific backing nor any socially acceptable background but only dwelling on self opinionated policies that has deepend rancor and disharmony in health sector

 

3. Leadership tussles within the health facilites

The lack of appropriate service focused process of appointing leaders/ heads of parastatals, hospital, departmental heads and units within the healthsector has led to abadonment of professional competencies and specialization at the expense of the client/ patients for administrative 'plump job'

 

4. Disparity in remuneration for Nurses and Midwives

The attempt to stick to colonial/ expatriate relativity in salary structure left much to be desired. The last salry reviewed was CONMESS and CONHESS and are good example of the disparity. As i speak, Hon Minister, medical and dental officers in the public service had gained several upward review of the CONMESS, Nurses and Midwives were denied the upward review. May i also ask how can there be peaceful industrial relation?

 

 

5. Composition of Baords

Appointment into the membership of boards of teaching hospital, federal medical centers and other health institutions are more often than not madw without the representatives of Nurses and Midwives on these board, yet the nurses and midwives consitute about 60 - 70 percent of the professional personnel in such institutions. Therefore i am making a case that the health institutions must have at least a nurse in their managment board

 

This is against the IAP Award of 1981 and NIC Judgment of 2012 as well as global best practices

 

The association again would like to appeal to the Hon Minister to truly reflect the change agenda of our president his excellency Mohammadu Buhari in the administration of federal ministry of health by appointing Nurses/ Midwives into the boards of the aforemention health institutions for justices, fair play and equity

 

6. Lopsidedness in the existing structure of federal ministry of health

The present structure of federal ministry of health has also contributed to the causes of conflict within the health industry. The structure favours only one profession that are heads in almost all the department and units. The IAP awards and NIC judgement of 2012 that aproved the creation of department of Nursing service in the federal ministry of health being resisted by some persons who are benefiting from the present structure. As presently obtained DNS is operating and reporting to DHS. Again we ask, how can there be industrial harmony under this circumstance?

 

7. Non Honouring of Agreement

It is important that i bring to the notice of the Hon Minister that NANNM, Federal ministry of health and federal ministry of employment have signed an agreement to set up a committee to implement the IAP Award and the judgement on formation of department of Nursing services. A committee was to be set up by FMOH with membership from National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives, Federal ministry of labour and employment till date that committee was not put in place

 

It may interest the Hon minister to note that payment of skipping as directed by NIC has not been fully implemented by some federal medical centers and teaching hospitals till date. In the same hospital where those who did not fight for the skipping and was vehemently opposed to it are today enjoying the same thing they opposed and called corruption then, Nigerian health care industry is in bondage of the whims and caprices of the medical doctors

 

Teaching Allowance for some of our Members

Injustices brew crises, so also denial of rights and privileged are precurso of job dissatisfaction and lowered productivity, The selective elimination and denial of our officers on CONHESS 7 and 8 from enjoining this professional allowance is discriminatory in nature. The teaching allowance was stopped; there was no explanation of any kind, and in further demonstration, the teaching allowance is deducted from the salary of all nursing personnel in some federal health institutions, those other professionals that were equally affected has been left out of the hook leaving nurse alone wallowing in the pain of deprivation

 

I wish to urge to you sir to use your good offices to redirect the payment of these legitimate allowances of our members for the sustenance of the current industrial peace

 

Redesignation, Stagnation and Demotion

We have suddenly been subjected to this agonizing situation on our members, this act of stagnation, re-designation and demotion with the threat of reduction in take home pay of our members is highly unpalatable and therefore must be discontinued. Hon Minister sir, your ministry has just recently sent some people to the field wasting scare ministry resources and inflicting verbal injury and psychological warfare on our members all in an attempt of burying the corpses of their victims of wickedness and envy. The singular reason that the 39th National council on establishment has just approved our scheme of service, of which we must thank the HON MINSTER and FMOH for your acceptance and forwarding the initial draft along with your input of USS to the OHCSOF for endorsement is a pointer that no re-designation is required for nurses. Titular promotion is equally very humilating while demotion is seen by us as a crime against humanity. It is equally synonymous to inflicting injury on our members; it is condemned and seen as uncalled for. Promotion is a dividend for work done deligently and must bring joy not agony. We therefore call on honourable minister to please halt the trend to allow for peaceful resolution. Let the anomaly be corrected on our USS and allowed to correct the ills within the systme, while anybody that have been promoted to any salary grade level should not in any circumstances be demoted. It is high time the FMOH joins hand with us to find lasting solution to the lingering crises especially for nurses whose new USS has just been aproved to accommodate proper placement of nurse interns, and provide cadre elongation to provide for our CNO currently on CONHESS 13 and promote others coming behind to the position.

 

SKIPPING OF CONHESS 10 SAGA

Equally if the information is right, human resources for health departments met recently to deprive our members of thier right to skipping arrears is nothing to go by, we advice FMOH to please redeem the ministry from turning to a house of commotion. So the time is ripe for our members' arrears of skipping to be paid without exception

 

Instigation and deprivation has caused state of emergency and insurgency in our health sector, while Nigeria is seriously fighting it in North East and militancy in the south and Eastern part of the country

 

Ladies and gentlement, whar an irony, you are seriously beating a child and you dont want the child to cry, with all these FMOH is still callously implementing NO WORK NO PAY for our members even in an unjustifable manner. The court case been dangled on us to prevent us from going on strike is highly condemnable, if the government violate various other court judgments awarded against them and you are using executive conspiracy against us, natural justice will not indict us if we decide to ignore your court proceeedings and stay in our homes from next month till God knows when, Members are gtting prepared to allow you to keep thier salary till justice will prevail and our withheld salary will be gotten without allowing you the benefit of service charges for keeping it safely for us, no thank to a government that illegally withhold entitlement of the down trodden because they no voice in governance

 

BRUTALITY AT FMC OWERRI

All wel meaning Nigerians should rise up in defense of sanity at FMC Owerri, even in war torn DR Congo, kenya, libya or syria, hospitals are sacred place free from this inhuman treatment of health care professionals. WE have watched the video and felt sorry for this country where uniform men are used to brutalized peaceful health workers protesting jungle justice of returning an MD of a hospital that has ruined the fortune and turn hitherto peaceful premises into warfront. Must it compulsorily be this woman? We have to speak now before loss of lives. Am sure the whole world will be interested in such video of show of shame and brutality in a health institution to prove the point that all is not well in Nigerian health sector

 

Hon minister sir, other problems are National post graduate college for Nurses, proper constitution of the board of the nursing and midwifery council of Nigeria, consultation cadre among nurses and midwives, task shifting etc too numberous to be mention. The National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives is determined to support and work with the Hon Minister to find a lasting solutio so some of these problems for the progress of health care delivery in Nigeria and the ministry of health

 

Hon Minister sir, Nigeria nurses are very optimistic that you will use you good office to look into these problems as thier immediate resolution will provide the necessary conducive environment for the provision of uninterrupted quality health care services to our ever increasing consumers of health care

 

I must not finish this address address without once again that the executive governor of the state of osun. You have selected som of us to an enviable position in local government administration. You are an embodiment of virtue. We are happy to associate with you for been transparent in your administration, our next take is to have one of us as honorable commissioner in your government. we shall not be ungrateful

 

In conclusion may i use this opportunity to appreciate the federal government on their various effort at fighting crime, corruption and militancy/insurgency. Nigerian nures congratulate the FGN, the family of the released 21 chibok girls, Nigerians at large and the brilliant and dedicated effort of Nigeria security network and armed forces. NANNM nurses are prepared to participate in rendering voluntary, counselling, psychological support and treatment for the girls. OUr next year focus includes increasing adequate and comprehensive health care services not only to our members that are victims of insurgency but also those living in abject conditions at IDPs camp throughout Nigeria. We have capacity to facilitate and render services towards rehabilitatin and reintegrating the victims back into the society. We urge every well meaning Nigerians that can collaborate with NANNM to provide resources and equipments for the voluntary services in this regards.

 

We hereby urge government at all levels to provide adequate security for our nurses that are currently been kidnapped and to appeal to the kidnappers to stop kidnapping nurses and midwives as we dont have enough even to take care of ourselves talk less of getting ransom for kidnappers

 

I praise the effort of the FMOH for appointing for us a substantive registrar after many years we have been in the limbo. I congratulate the Nurse Umar Faruk the newly appointed registrar for a well deserved appointment. This is the greates of nurses' assembly in Nigeria, we urge the FMOH, to empower the NMCN of nigeria to take over MSS full and made the council to be reporting to you directly. We need to save the lives and protect the career of the graduates of our school of midwifery who are languishing without neither been send on compulsory midwives scheme nor allow registering to be licensed to practice their profession

 

I finally congratulate the entire Nigeria nurses and call for peaceful and harmonious political transition, NANNM belongs to all of us. We must join hand to uplift it

 

Thank you for Listening