Presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 General Elections, Peter Obi, has advised Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria (NMCN) against stopping their members desiring to flee (japa) from Nigeria to other countries.
Obi urged NMCN to consider reversing their recently updated guidelines for nurses’ verification.
He appealed to them not to impede nurses from seeking global opportunities with stringent measures.
He told the NMCN that earlier released revised guidelines for verifying nurses migrating abroad were widely seen as an attempt to discourage nurse migration from Nigeria.
Obi emphasised the importance of enabling Nigerian nurses to access better global opportunities.
He said: “We should facilitate our nurses in maximising their skills globally by implementing measures that grant them increased access to global opportunities. Nigerian nurses are highly sought after worldwide. By migrating and gaining international skills and experiences, they reinvest the same into our health sector for more growth.”
Presenting a N20 million cheque to the Proprietor of College of Nursing Sciences, Most Rev Jonas Benson Okoye, Obi reiterated his commitment to investing in critical areas of development, which healthcare is number one and the healthcare worker is the frontliner of this critical value chain component.
“Recent studies project a shortage of several million nurses globally by 2030, of which Nigeria is a part. With this foreknowledge, we should invest more aggressively in training more nurses and establishment of nursing schools nationwide to meet the global market and demand, addressing the shortage,” Obi stated.
