Confessions Of A Lagos Male Nurse

When Moses a male nurse (real names witheld) decided he needed to go for confessions at the small catholic church where he worshiped, little did he know he was in for a shock of his life. He had confessed to the priest his role in assisted illegal abortions at a private clinic where he practised in lagos and the priest replied "Moses, you need to confess to the "BISHOP" . Abortion is a SIN against humanity and against the sanctity of human life you swore to protect at your Nursing induction ceremony! Go to the cathedral and ask to speak with the BISHOP!

This article is not about the patient, but about NURSING and Nurses, specifically a few male nurses practising in lagos private practise. Male nurses have long been touted as the messiahs to lead the profession into the promised land but the opposite seems to be the case in Lagos state. Male nurses in majority of private practise in lagos have consistently connived with the medical directors of hospitals to sit in as DOCTORS, consulting and diagnosising at the detriment of the profession.

Inevitably, Auxilliary nurses are automatically employed to man the floors and take over jobs that registered nurses should have been employed at. While some male nurses excell so much in this act of impersonation, they sadly do this same job a doctor could have been paid 80 to 90 thousand naira for a meager 30,000naira , at the risk of loosing thier license and also being jailed.

The male nurses who dumbly don't know the effect of thier practise on the general nursing practice in nigeria go ahead to train and educate these auxilliary nurses on the duties and job description of registered nurses, even holding classes for them where a certificate that took the male nurse 3 years to earn, is reduced to a mere 20 minute a day class lecture.......hmmmm

Few jobs make such emotional demands or put professionals into such raw contact with the public at

their most vulnerable and challenging. For many patients in hospital, nurses are the human face of the health system and a constant presence through their

journey of care. As i sit and reflect on how one singular act of one male nurse could render other nurses jobless and inconsequential in the running of private practise in

Lagos, it beats my imagination that this act continues unchecked. It is high time we, male nurses begin to

understand how our singular actions can make or mar our struggle to move the profession higher.