NURSING COUNCIL’S SOBERING AWAKENING

One of my greatest fears is a world that has an enormous ability to look the other way while people suffer.

That would mean a people without conscience. A people that is heartless. A nation that is morally bankrupt and would leave some of us cold and unforgiving. It would depict a people that begrudge everything and anything. Basically, it would be a lawless jungle where only the strongest survive.
Talk of an ideally evil place where atrocity reigns supreme. Certainly, that is not what most of us dream of. We do not want a situation or a country where a mere look from your neighbour would cause one to run like hell. No.

That is why I found the Eswatini Nursing Council’s statement this week so refreshing. One of the local daily newspapers reported that the council had resolved that before nurses are registered they would have to be tested. They will sit for an examination.

meet standards of health

According to the council, the exercise is aimed at ensuring that all nurses practising in this lovely Kingdom of Eswatini are competent and that they meet the standards of health. The Registrar of the Council, Nkosinathi Nkwanyana, reportedly stated that this move was aimed at prioritising safety in the country’s health facilities. Whether the nurse studied locally or abroad is no excuse.

They will all have to sit for the said examination and have their skills or knowledge tested before they are allowed to practice. And I thought, finally, the council was coming back to life. Our lives have been hanging by a thread for too long under the hands of suspicious health practitioners flaunting questionable certificates. And no one seemed to care. We were only depending on some twist of fate to have them discovered.

Otherwise an expatriate motor mechanic could have emulated that French doctor who allegedly created emergencies, to then intervene and prove his prowess. That is how vulnerable we were. Our lives were in danger of being toyed with by some untested sugar cane cutters posing as nurses.

I hope and pray that Pharmacists will be examined as well. That is why the idea of having them tested before registration and pracitising was very sweet. It is a sobering move. And we are very confident that the Eswatini Patients’ Rights Charter that desolately hangs on the walls of some of these health institutions will be adhered to now. The charter is a document issued by some authority creating a public or private institution and it defines its purposes and privileges. It further confers rights and privileges on a person, corporation etcetera.

Among other things the Eswatini Patients’ Rights Charter states succinctly that every person has the right to a healthy and safe environment that will ensure their physical and mental health or well-being, including adequate water supply, sanitation and waste disposal as well as protection from all forms of environmental danger such as pollution and infection.

However, my highlight of the contents of the charter is under the continuity of care where the charter states without wincing that no one shall be abandoned by a health care professional, worker or health facility that initially took responsibility for one’s health. Now with the stance the council has taken we hope and believe our lives will be in the hands of very capable professionals who adhere to the charter and the oath which they voluntarily took. We are certain that the stories of questionable still-births in our health institutions will be a thing of the past.

very paralysing story

We want to believe our expectant mothers will be attended to timeously and not turned back. It was very paralysing to read the story of a woman who lost her baby because she was turned back at a certain health facility. She was in labour but nurses ordered her to go back home despite the labour. They reportedly insisted that she should go back home. And once the baby had died, the Hospital Administrator decided to go mute just like the biblical Zechariah who fathered John the Baptist.

They reasoned that the Director of Health was better placed to comment on the matter. And for heaven’s sake! the Director of Health was not there when they insensitively turned back the poor woman. The director was not there when they pledged to serve patients willingly. Now why should they refer questions of negligence to him, yet they chose to neglect the woman on their own volition?  The sudden resurgence of the council will breathe a new life to nursing in this country.

The above incident of the poor woman is not isolated. There is a litany of similar issues that go unreported. This issue is just a dam of burst emotions, a tumbling mass of feelings and trying to deal with the poor mother was like straying into a path of a raging torrent.
The poor woman was left distraught. A baby is a bundle of joy. And what does one do when his or her bundle of joy is deliberately burst?

I can bet my last dime, she or he reacts. As to how, you are all correct in your guesses. We want to believe the Nursing Council will listen to such deflated souls. These souls deserve some form of remedy. The culprits who callously throw lives under the bus need to be dealt with.

Truth is; none of us is inerrant.
But when a woman, who is in labour and is rushed to hospital, where the door is slammed shut on her, is that not tantamount to shoving lives under the bridge? When our minds scream helplessness at the hopeless situation that is coldly staring at us, the council should raise its hand.

It should swiftly come to our defence. It is encouraging that the council reasoned that the examination and registration of nurses was based on a study that was conducted in 2003.We will not ask them why it took this long for them to smell the coffee. We are just grateful that they are taking steps to correct some of the ills. After the registration, we believe all nurses will know all the lines of the Florence Nightingale pledge.

The oath will be like old scrolls imprinted on their brain to lead them to the side of service. The council should also stir their reservoirs of service in their hearts to simmer and overflow with pity. It is such attitude that will untangle the hard knot of distrust that was slowly growing within the people.

confidence in our health

The awakening of the council will give us the confidence in our health institutions and revitalise the waning trust. And we urge them to embrace the council.
It should not be seen as protecting the patients at their expense. But it should be seen as a body that is there to bring harmony between both parties. As a cardinal point, service should be of the highest standard and that starts with their testing so that optimum health is achieved.

For the first time in our lives, there is a feeling of balance and certainty as though everything before had been out of focus and muddled. Suddenly, the Eswatini Nursing Council has brought sharpness and clarity. And I swear, I appreciate the council for the first time. I thank you.

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