The Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria (NMCN) has said the new Verification of Certificate guidelines recently issued by the body was not meant to witch-hunt them nor slow their career growth, but to promote professionalism in the noble profession and also protect it from quacks.
The council lamented that over 42, 000 nurses have emigrated in the last three years and over 15,000 others left to practise abroad just last year alone.
Consequently, the regulator has vowed that it would not withdraw the circular on new guidelines for verification of nurses’ certificates and other rules of engagement with them.
Registrar of the Council, Dr Faruk Umar Abubakar, who stated this yesterday when he appeared on a live programme, noted that NMCN has been inundated with complaints from health facilities about activities of nurses, adding that some of the these professionals abscond from duty for days and even weeks, “only for you to hear they have left the country for professional practice abroad with no proper resignation or notification.
Describing the situation as unprofessional, Abubakar explained that the council is not against foreign practice, but it is expected that it should be done formally.
On her part, Chairman, National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives (NANNM), Lagos Chapter, Christiana Adeboboye, argued that nurses are leaving for foreign practice because of several inadequacies in the country, coupled with poor renumeration and working conditions
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Service Chiefs, Inspector General of Police, DG DSS, and DG, NIA.
