Nursing students picket ministry over denied internship

Category: News Published on Tuesday, 19 February 2013 18:31 Written by Judd-Leonard Okafor

Nursing students took over the entrance of the federal health ministry headquarters to protest failures that have prevented them from doing internships.

More than 200 final-year students of nursing from 24 universities barricaded the FMOH entrance at Federal Secretariat in Abuja’s Central Area, stopping workers from entering as early as 10 in the morning.

Nursing students are required to undergo a year of internship in clinical studies, reportedly approved by the National Universities Commission in 2010.

But the Nigerian Universities Nursing Students Associations, NUNSA, said delay in implementing the programme has hit its members hardest, denying them of clinical experience and leaving them less privileged than other students of health and medical sciences who undergo housemanship.

NUNSA president, Ozu Frederick, told Daily Trust that students graduating in nursing science were “half-baked products” without the internship programme.

Half-baked graduates

They also are unmarketable, since employers will not hire them or give them their due, or treat them like illiterates, said Frederick.

One banner the protesters carried read: “So Nigerians how do you feel, when your child is sick and the nurses in charge of your child are not trained; treating your child under ignorance due to lack of full knowledge of what he’s doing?”

Other banners read “Internship is the heartbeat of a nurse” and “Internship is the way forward to true professionalism in nursing science”.

Sources say the union has met with top ministry officials, who assured them their complaints were being considered.