The problems with our Schools of Nursing, by Health Commissioner

Dr. EmemAbasi Bassey is the state commissioner for Health, he hails from Eket and his professionalism can never be in doubt. Whether he is able to translate professionalism into administration is one thing that many wait to see ever since he was appointed into the state Executive council to superintend over the affairs of Health in the state. He spoke to JOSEPH OKON in his office concerning the state of Affairs of the Schools of Nursing and the accreditation wahala in Akwa Ibom. Excerpts  

We actually have nine Nursing Schools, which are four
    Schools of Nursing, four Schools of Midwifery and a School of Psychiatric Nursing. Many of them were owned and operated by the missionaries long before the government took over and some of them were established because of the need for it. Nursing profession is very dynamic. Over the years, it has been improvised with regulatory bodies enforcing standards and correcting wrongs like the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria.

When we talk about accreditation today which is usually given for a number of years, they will come back and re-accredit you. It is true that when I took over, we had some problems with our schools of nursing, all of them, but I want to believe that to a long extent we have been able to get provincial reaccreditation for two of them. One school of nursing which is the central school of nursing at Ikot Ekpene which we have since admitted the last year batch and also the school of midwifery at Oron. The rest of them I will say they are at various stages of reaccreditation. When you talk about reaccreditation, it is a very expensive business, and I want to use this opportunity to commend the Governor Chief Godswill Akpabio because if every administration was doing what he has done, we would not have been in this position that we find ourselves. The government is now in the process of rebuilding those schools which was totally unacceptable.

Reaccreditation is a process; the fact that we have not invited the federal body for them to come for reaccreditation does not mean that we are not working. We are trying to get things right, the first thing is that we need to get the structure. In the next couple of months the various contractors will hand over and for emphasis, those contracts were awarded long before my appointment as commissioner and I know that one or two recalcitrant contractors have been reported to the interministerial committee who will call them to order to ensure that they can met the time line that these buildings are completed. Secondly, sometimes ago we actually had advertisement usually for recruitment of health staff who were lecturers at various schools, some of the problems we had was that we did not have well equipped lecturers, so we were told that we need to have more lecturers, so once we can recruit those lecturers, complete the infrastructures we should be able to call for reaccreditation this year.

Another thing that the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria pointed out that they may likely affect those accreditations was lack of a bill establishing the college of nursing. Since the creation of this State about twenty six years ago, there is no such bill, as I speak that bill is still in the Exco, there is a bill in the Exco, when it is cleared in the exco we will send it to the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly for the establishment of what will be known as a college of Nursing.

WHAT IS COLLEGE OF NURSING?
Now people have misunderstood this concept of college of nursing because I have heard people say I want to close-down the others because of college of nursing. College of nursing will be the main campus where the central school of nursing Ikot Ekpene is located. That choice was long made before I came; it was when we were looking at the infrastructures that we discovered that the one at Ikot Ekpene was the best of all with the best infrastructures. Remember when you are talking about a college, you are talking about a complete school. For now what they are giving is diploma, nursing is dynamic so we are looking beyond that to see how people can have BSc in nursing, we want to ensure that we start BSc degree programme and also in the future we look at the possibility of affiliating the college of nursing with our State University or University of Uyo for the running of Bsc programmes. We have said that the main school of nursing will be at the central school of nursing Ikot Ekpene, and all other schools of nursing will be campuses. We will still run these regular nursing programmes and also will seek how we can run in the future a degree programme through the college of nursing. We are going to have a central structure, so that is one of the things that is holding the reaccreditation. Sooner or later all these problems will be sorted out. And do not forget that for sometimes now, the country has been facing cash flow problems which has also transcended to the States.

SCHOOLS OF NURSING AND 2014 BUDGET 
Immediately the 2014 budget is passed, I’m going to set up a task force that will be working towards the re-accreditation of schools of nursing. I cannot promise anybody that I will get all the schools accredited in one year, I will just do the best I can because like I have said it is a very expensive business. It depends on the state of infrastructure, the amount of staff I have, and the amount of resources available to me. We will try to do that, if not this year, probably next year. Last year we only admitted at Ikot Ekpene and at the school of midwifery Oron. This calendar year I will tackle a couple of them, I don’t know how many but it will depend on the resources. The fault that the schools of nursing lost accreditation are not from this government, the previous administration was not doing what they should have done. The schools lost accreditation before I became the commissioner around 2012. We will not say they lost accreditation, they were due for reaccreditation but they will not come for reaccreditation except you meet this conditions set out by the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria. During the previous accreditation visit, there were a lot of complains about the infrastructure which is why we are trying to get right.

When you go for an accreditation visit, you have your own standard contained in your check list, but under certain conditions we can tell you that we are giving you a provincial accreditation for so-so number of years, before we come back we want to see A, B, C, D, E, ready, if not so you loss that accreditation, and is on papers, written report. Accreditation is not something you do every year; it is once in two to five years depending on what happens. So it could be said that very early in the administration of Godswill Akpabio they must have come and the then sitting commissioner did what he or she should have done and presented it to the government who awarded those jobs under the interministerial direct labour committee, that they are yet to be finished is not the fault of government. When I became commissioner and faced with this issue, I went round all the schools and I have seen the level of work, most of them are nearing completion, I’m hoping that within the next few months they will be completed and handed over. 

Then we can now sort out other issues like staffing, even this bill, then we should be able to do the accreditation. The number will depend on the resources available. I want to say it again that the accreditation is not cheap.