Nurses under the aegis of University Graduates of Nursing Science Association, UGONSA, have restated that it is not part of JOHESU and therefore instructed members not to participate in the looming strike that only strives to truncate the actualization of internship for the graduates of the B.N.Sc through its proposed Unified Schemes of Service for Nurses. In a statement jointly signed by its National President, Chief Hon S.E.O Egwuenu, and National Secretary, Nur. G.I. Nshi, the Association said, “it stuns imagination that JOHESU over time has shown unhidden disdain for the professional growth and development of nursing by its sinister arrogation of  Unified Schemes of Service to Nursing, a global multi-cadre profession, without doing same to other multi-cadre professions in its folds simply because it is not comfortable with graduates of B.N.Sc going for internship and joining the Civil Service on at least CONHESS 09, like other health professionals in its fold.

 

”We invite all discerning Nurses to note that JOHESU has come again with its gimmickry of using Nurses as a launch pad for advancement of the welfare of its ‘non-nurse’ members at the expense of critical professional and welfare issues that borders nursing profession, especially the internship and proper placement of the graduates of the B.N.Sc degree, by its threat of strike should the Federal Government fail to accede to its demand before 17th of February, 2016.

 

”It beggars belief that JOHESU that has the likes of pharmacy, Medical Laboratory Science, Optometry, and so on, never bargained for Unified Schemes of Service for these multi-cadre professions as it is doing for the nursing profession despite the fact that those professions run multiple cadres with University Graduates, having at least first degree in their respective disciplines, running the directorate cadre and the Diploma Graduates, having HND or its equivalent, running the executive cadre.

 

”Is it not the height of hypocrisy and deceit that these other professions, within JOHESU, despite running internship for their University Graduates, who are all properly placed on at least CONHESS 09 post-NYSC, without Unified Schemes of Service are leading the campaign for a Unified Schemes of Service for Nurses as the panacea for actualization of internship and proper placement of the University Graduates of Nursing?

”Unified Schemes of Service ,at its best, is an ostensible and desperate ploy to stall the actualization of internship and proper placement of Graduates of B.N.Sc and ,at its worst, a sinister plot to kill and bury professionalism in Nursing.

 

 

The Association further stated that, “it is not against any person or group aspiring to be appointed into the directorate cadre but vehemently against the satanic concept of using such aspiration to stall another person’s or group’s progress as being done to the Graduate Nurses internship struggle with the proposal of Unified Schemes of Service for Nurses”.

 

”JOHESU can neither feign ignorance of the evaluation and pronouncement of the Federal Ministry of Education that the basic qualifications of Nursing and Midwifery (.i.e. the RN/RM) are ‘equivalent to HND for employment purpose’ nor can it deny that it is not aware of the general matter of Establishment that in the Civil Service of the Federation, holders of HND run the executive cadre that terminates at Grade Level 14 (CONHESS 13) while the degree holders run the directorate cadre that terminates at Grade Level 17 (CONHESS 16).

 

”We wouldn’t have bothered joining issues with anybody if JOHESU had, for example, proposed for  preferential elongation of the terminal point of the Nurses’ Executive (superintendent) cadre from Grade Level 14 to 17 or even beyond, probably to the level of Permanent Secretary, Commissioner or even Minister, to make the RN/RM ‘special diplomas’ that are equivalent ,or even greater than the degree, rather than propose for the impossible lumping of the directorate and executive cadres for nurses alone at expense of other HND holders, ostensibly to stall the realization of the internship struggle by the graduates of the B.N.Sc degree.

”Our candid advice to the proponents of the unrealistic Unified Schemes of Service is to rather channel the enormous energy and resources they are busy dissipating on this futile exercise to pursuing a ‘Unified Schemes of Education’ for Nurses that would see to the upgrade or affiliation of Schools of Nursing to degree awarding institutions to induce a rancor-free milieu that would make every Nurse ‘a University Graduate’ and automatically qualified to run the directorate cadre.

 

”We have not forgotten that the Unified Schemes of Service stalled the passage of the Nursing internship memo at the 38th National Council on Establishment meeting held in February, 2014 at Ilorin, Kwara State and therefore cannot idly sit back and watch a group of gangsters use their misplaced and misguided agenda to truncate our own very aspiration that borders on our professionalism, destiny and better future for our posterity.

The Association reminded Nurses that, “the proponents of the Unified Schemes of Service recently told the world that the internship for the graduates of the B.N.Sc is not a labour matter but rather an Establishment matter and such does not require industrial action for its actualization.

 

 ”We verily alert Nurses to note that subsuming the internship under Unified Schemes of Service, which is also an Establishment matter, and calling for strike over it has clearly exposed their sheer hypocrisy, deceit and double standards and therefore confirms that the Unified Schemes of Service is a well orchestrated subterfuge that solely aims to cause the National Council on Establishment to throw away the germane internship demand together with the irrational and unsaleable Unified Schemes of Service they purportedly claim subsumes it. 

 

”If not so, our unambiguous demand has always remained that the National Council on Establishment review the Nursing directorate’s (Officer’s) cadre to include the post of Nurse interns and thus we expect the proponents of the Unified Schemes of Service to rather, if they have any iota of honesty, demand for the review of the Nursing Superintendent cadre to include the post of Assistant Director of Nursing, and above, than proposing that the two cadres, which are ‘non-unifiable’, be unified only for the Nurses.

 

”It is now crystal clear that all the barrage of reasons adduced for the strike are nothing but a flowery gimmick and a red herring to lure the unsuspecting Nurses into a strike that would earn them nothing other than public opprobrium, mistrust and ridicule but aids the plotters and their cohorts advance their own selfish agenda as evidenced by the ratification of the aberrant under placement of the University Graduates of one of JOHESU’s composite groups to CONHESS 09 post-NYSC following the previous strikes while those of Nursing still languish on CONHESS 07 Post-NYSC”. 

“We therefore strongly call on all discerning Nurses, especially our members to ignore JOHESU and its misplaced penchant for unnecessary strikes and work gallantly like our Mother, Nightingale, to care for and save the lives of their patients should JOHESU down tool as threatened