The University Graduates of Nursing Science Association, UGONSA, Lagos State Chapter has lamented that quackery in nursing profession has become pandemic in the state and needs immediate attention to forestall further avoidable rise in medical complications, disabilities and deaths, which habitually arise as a result of mismanagement of unsuspected patients in the hands of these quacks usually called auxiliary nurses by their portentous employers.

 

In a statement jointly made yesterday by the Lagos State Chairman, Nurse Awe Promise and the State Secretary, Nurse Oloye O. Abiola , the association said its assessment of the current level of quackery in nursing profession in Lagos is butchery and inauspicious, and it has drastically lowered the life expectancy of the citizens over the years.

 

 

The association observed with discomfiture that over 75% of private hospitals in Lagos State are luxuriously using quack nurses and unlicensed nurse practitioners to dispense holistic nursing and medical care to good people of Lagos State, who are unaware that not everybody on white uniform are registered as nurses by the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria (NMCN). 

 

These fake nurses always impersonate the identity of a registered and certified nurses by putting on white uniform to beguile and delude unsuspecting patients and public to believing they are nurses. 

 

We have seen cases in newspapers where it was reported that fake nurses/auxiliary nurses chopped off the arm of a baby in an attempt to forcefully deliver an obstructed labour and they have also perpetrated all manners of unethical practices such as performing abortion in unhygienic environment leading to death and morbid complications of patients, by that, smirching the public image of professional nurses and burlesque the sacred nursing profession in Nigeria.  

 

The Association said that, in order to ensure safe and reliable health care delivery to the public, the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria has issued several warnings to those who provide nursing care, forged nursing licenses and called themselves nurses without being registered by the Council.  

 

The Association wishes to sound a note of caution and precept to Medical Directors/ Chief Executive Officers of private hospitals who illegally train and harbour these quacks or make use of them to provide nursing care to the good people of Lagos State, not minding the enormous risk associated with such contemptuous action, just to maximize profit, employ cheap labours and truncate good quality health care at the expense of the health and wellbeing of the public. 

 

They are doing this to frustrate the effort of the Lagos State Government to achieve quality, effective and efficient health care devoid of malpractices and complications.

We urge the security agencies in the country, especially the law enforcement agents to assist the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria to flush out these deadly vampires from the State and Nigeria as a whole. 

 

The Lagos State Health Facility Monitoring and Accreditation Agency (HEFAMAA), should be proactive in their action and inaction as towards accreditation of private health facilities, shun favouritism, bribery and unprofessionalism in discharging their duties. 

 

The association noticed with dismay that most of these private hospitals and facilities registered by HEFAMAA are harbouring quack/auxiliary nurses, even some facilities made fake nurses to head clinical nursing unit, this should not occur in a sane clime. 

UGONSA Lagos frowns at lapses being witnessed currently among the management of HEFAMAA and urge the state government to extend its anti-corruption policy to HEFAMAA Unit.

 

Furthermore, UGONSA Lagos is using this medium to send serious warnings to those who aid quackery in any form in the profession. The association emphasized that it is a criminal offence, punishable by the law of federal republic of Nigeria for unlicensed person to impersonate as a nurse or discharge nursing care without duly registered by the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria. 

 

As a professional association, the University Graduate of Nursing Science, Lagos State Chapter (UGONSA Lagos) will want to advise the state government to look inwards and begin to take urgent and proactive steps that will curb quackery in the medical profession.