By Chimezie Agwu
Nurses, together with doctors, render invaluable service to society. At the hospital, it is nurses who first attend to patients and get them ready to see doctors. At times, the first thing they do in the morning is to give educative health talk to a group of patients before they see doctors.
Oftentimes, pregnant women and nursing mothers who attend antenatal and postnatal clinics are first thrilled with invigorating and cheering choruses raised by the nurses before they see doctors. Considering the volume of work in hospitals, especially in general hospitals, it would be difficult for doctors to cope effectively with their schedule of duty each day without nurses.
Nurses complement doctors. It is nurses who administer the drugs on patients, according to doctors’ prescriptions. Nurses are usually more easily available to patients than doctors. They are the link between the doctor and the patient. It is the nurse who takes time to explain to the patient how they should take their medicine.
In many rural areas, the nurse is many things rolled into one: doctor, laboratory attendant, consultant, midwife and pharmacist. It may be easy to criticise such nurses and dismiss them as fake but the fact remains that, without them, incidence of deaths resulting from minor ailments like headache, malaria, diarrhoea and cough would be on the rise.
Very often, nurses are at the risk of contracting infectious diseases they are treating in their patients. This often happens when they are handling ailments like tuberculosis, cholera, chicken pox, Ebola and, lately, coronavirus, otherwise known as COVID-19. Those who are trained in psychiatric nursing and are working in psychiatric hospitals face more hazards in the performance of their duties, as they at times encounter violent patients who confront them with dangerous objects.
Nurses often come under criticism by some members of the public who hold that nurses are promiscuous and that they engage in amorous relationships with their bosses – the male doctors.
Such allegations should be discountenanced since office romance is something that happens across the board and is not limited to the nursing profession or to hospitals. A look at recent happenings in some churches and universities would confirm this. Also, there have been allegations about some nurses swapping newborn babies of different sexes in maternity wards or conniving with child traffickers to sell newborn babies.
Nurses are also accused of rudeness to patients and other forms of misbehaviour. In reaction, nurses claim some patients are difficult to deal with. Such patients are usually reluctant to accept injections prescribed and they do not find it easy to swallow tablets either. This usually forces nurses to be harsh and shout at the patients.
That is not to say that nurses are not infallible. Oftentimes, their careless and vulgar utterances to patients constitute a shame to the nursing profession. I have on some occasions listened to some young mothers narrate their embarrassment in the hands of some nurses in a public maternity hospital. One of them narrated that, shortly after she was delivered of twin babies, her husband, a young man of small stature, came to see her. As the man showed up in the ward, one of the nurses rudely remarked to the hearing of her husband: “So, na this small boy give you belle for twins.” One wondered what the unruly nurse intended to achieve by that careless disparaging comment.
Another young mother narrated how she was rushed to a maternity ward while she was in labour pain. As she lay on the bed naked and exhausted, one of the nurses attending to her taunted her: “Look at you madam. You have just finished having fun with your husband, and you carried your body to this place just like that to disturb us.”
My experience in a Lagos hospital is another minus for nurses. I had a five-hour surgical operation that day. In the night, I started having excruciating pain from the surgery. As I was crying like a child and calling the doctor, the nurse on duty, a lady, shouted at me to keep quiet. I continued crying. She shouted at me the more: “This man you must be a drug addict.”
I replied: “Why are you calling me a drug addict, can’t you see that I am in pain?” She retorted: “What type of pain can make you to be shouting like that in the dead of the night? You don’t allow people to sleep. In the morning, I will tell the doctor to discharge you so that you can go to your house and cry.”
I was shocked that a nurse could be talking to a patient in pain in that manner. Our nurses need re-orientation from time to time. Care should be taken to ensure that those being employed are academically and naturally equipped for the job. Aside from being neat and smartly dressed, nurses should have the right temperament for the profession. They have to be patient, tolerant, friendly, sympathetic, gentle, communicative and caring.
When a patient is stubborn or uncooperative in the course of their treatment, a nurse is expected to bring her professional attributes to bear on the situation, and by so doing gain the upper hand. It is not for her to exchange words or engage in a shouting match with such a patient. That is what the ethics of the profession demand.
Nurses have, often like workers in other sectors, asked for improved remuneration. In view of their noble profession, which, together with doctors and other paramedical staff, involves saving human lives, it would not be out of place to advise that frustration in whatever form should not be allowed to be in the way of good package for the healthcare team so as to motivate them for optimum performance.
•Agwu can be reached on 07082882568