A nurse is a person who is trained to give care (help) to people who are sick or injured. They are care givers.
Nurses are trained to be caring and tolerant while dealing with patients, knowing fully well that their actions and attitude go a long way to heal or worsen patient’s condition.
A hospital is supposed to be a place of comfort or relief, a place where the sick and the wounded is expected to be treated with care and love so that they can overcome their medical condition. It is supposed to be a refuge to the sick, but when hospitals are now turned into prisons where the sick are afraid to go for assistance, then something is wrong and those things needed to be corrected. Those in authority should do something about it quickly.
As important as this nurse to patient relationship is, it has been observed that most Nigerian nurses are not friendly while attending to their patients. Most times, they are insultive, rude and believe that once you are a patient; you don’t deserve any honour or regard.
Any patient who had passed the night while being treated for one ailment or the other in a public hospital or had cause to be hospitalized for some days will testify toward the non-challant attitude of nurses to patients in their care.
Over the weekend, I took a patient to the public hospital and I was shocked to my bone, when a nurse nearly slapped me that I didn’t come with my patient fast when she called her name. It was what brought me to the topic of this week “Nigerian Female Nurses and their Surprises” because I expected that hence my patient couldn’t walk fast because of the pains she was going through, they (nurses) were supposed to give a helping hand but is was making a mistake. Most nurses in the hospital are so hostile to patients that rather than assist then to recover from their ailment, add to their troubles.
Patients start having problems with the nurses from ordinary filing of names on the patient’s card, shouting at the patient who manages to get to the hospital in pain for not speaking louder while giving the name. It becomes a different ball game, if a dying patient mistakenly threw up without using the toilet, forgetting that as a patient, one is helpless and need the love and support of a caring nurse to scale through.
Most nurses see patients as nobody. It is one thing to be sick, it is another thing to be immediately and well attended to. Ask some nurses simple questions on drugs prescription and this will give them headache. Some of them, will not even move on sighting a patient wallowing in pains, they will shout at the top of their voices using insultive languages on patients. Some nurses in the hospital could win an award for being extremely rude. They act like they are doing for free, a job they are being paid.
Nurses by their profession should be caregivers and social workers. When patients now become so much afraid of the nurses that they can no longer confide in them or express their pains, then something is wrong.
Visitors and relations of patients also receive harsh treatment from nurses in public hospitals. The nurses address them rudely and sometimes force them to sleep with their patients so that they can take care of them, indirectly performing the duty of the nurses that they are being paid for.
Nigerian nurses are like the backbones of government hospitals, that is why when they go on strike, activities in the hospital almost completely come to a halt. As a matter of fact, nursing profession was not just to wear white gown with nurses cap to showcase that you are a nurse, it was extremely a life saving affairs.
It is, however, necessary to stress here that it is not all the nurses in public hospitals that are guilty of this. There are some caring and dutiful ones who will do everything to ensure that patients under their care receive attention. These one should be commended.
It is time our health providers had a change of heart. Nurses in particular, must show love and understanding to their patients.
It is the prayer of Women Focus to call the attention of relevant institutions to give proper orientation to the nurses before sending them out to the public hospitals where patients run to, to get their lives save. ###
EDITH NSE FRIDAY
08025293937
fridaynse@yahoo.com
