During the pandemic outbreak and lockdown, the whole world promised NURSES everything that we deserved and more. They came out to clap, stand and sing for us, as though these things will bring food to our tables or put money in our pockets or even cater for our loved ones. We were so glad to join the band in saving the world because, I mean, that’s what we do. We did all we could and we are still doing that, even WHO tagged the year 2020 – “THE YEAR OF THE NURSES”. We thought what we waited so long for was finally here! We were hopeful, our will was stirred up again and we gave our all to the world…
Now in 2021, still amidst the pandemic, Nurses have started “pleading for a fair pay” again – a place no one thought they will ever fall back to. Nurses are back to being disregarded or underrated; back to being constantly bullied and wrongly categorized. Recently, I saw a memo showing the newly proposed payment scale for interns in Nigeria and Nurses were not only listed in the least paid category but even categorized with other groups whose work does not correlate or close to that of the Nurses.
I think we are getting to a point where nurses truly need to give the world leaders what they give to us.
Nurses work so much – spending their sweat and blood – only to be underpaid with little or no regards. They can be likened to the “slaves” in the healthcare system because they follow up with “every order” until it is done and this takes a bulk of their day-to-day activities. Nurses pick up the slack of other healthcare professionals. Doctors are late to the patients room or Physiotherapists are not early enough; the nurses are called. The meds didn’t arrive on time, gloves are out of stock, the lift is not working, the TV is faulty, the floor needs to be mopped, the AC isn’t cooling and I can go on and on.
Nurses attend to every patient at every point, they have all the explanations, they have all the different ways to alleviate anxiety, they are faulted for most things that go wrong in the hospital and sometimes take the blame just to calm the patient or patient relative who is yelling. Nurses do all these things and still show up for rounds, show up hourly to balance intake and output charts, and at exactly 2pm for afternoon meds, and more.
Unfortunately, despite these tasking duties and multitasking with the changes that came with the pandemic, Nurses are still left to worry about how the world will pay us back or some bags of empty promises, especially in a country like ours – Nigeria. It is barely a year, away from the lockdown with its associated promises to the Nurses and we are back at zero. The world has failed us and I am here to call everyone of us to remembrance.
… AGAIN, WE ARE TRULY HURT, THE WORLD HAS FAILED US, THE WORLD SHOULD WAKE UP!!! WE ARE TIRED OF BEGGING FOR RELEVANCE AND A FAIR PAY!
I truly hope this gets to every leader out there, so they can lend a voice for Nurses…
About Author:
Temitayo Olatunji is a Registered Nurse/Midwife and Entrepreneur who is passionate about improving the quality of care available to people in Nigeria and contributing towards improving the status of the nursing profession in Nigeria.
