For
it is often said, the smallest truth is still bigger than a biggest lies. From my
personal observations, Ghana is one country in the sub-Saharan Africa, where
most teeming youth rush into the nursing profession all in the name of rapid
employment opportunity and remunerations. But it is obvious most of these youth
in fact don’t have the passion for this reputable career.
I
do believe my readers will agree with me that this revered profession; nursing
is a profession to serve humanity. The profession is a very complicated one and
so, much care must be taken by nurses since human lives “partially” depend on
them. Again, I believe this career is not made for faint-hearted people but
rather people with much boldness and courage. But now what do we see? People
who cannot withstand little pressure at work and also people who cannot
tolerate others I mean their own patients. Obviously, most of these youth think
the nursing vocation is just a dummy-run hence they’re eventually rushing into
it without thinking twice about the intricacies involved. Are we to blame them
for their choices?
Besides,
most of these teeming youth are going into this profession merely for the
monthly allowances paid to them which they commonly called “Allower”. I can
emphatically say that most of these nurses have no love or passion for the
career. But today, we see them in their numbers nicely dressed-up in their
neatly sleek uniforms. Honestly, this write-up is not written to deface the
nursing profession but only to share my opinion on what I have noticed in
recent times just as the maxim goes “one bad habit often spoils a dozen of good
ones”.
Moreover,
some of these young nurses mostly don’t exercise patience when attending to or about
to attend to a patient. I do ask myself do these nurses’ easily forget or they
just don’t understand the pledge they swear which states in stanza three of
their code of ethics which reads. “I promise to respect at all times the
dignity of the patient in my charge”. I believe some duties of the nurses
includes; taking care of whole patient- his mind and body, to provide health
education and other health services to the individual, family, society and the
nation as a whole for the prevention of deadly diseases and to promote good
health. But the question here is do these young nurses in our various hospitals
normally have time for all these? Again, I have also noticed that, some of
these nurses instead of them doing what are expected from them or attending to
a patient they rather spend time on their cell phones talking, surfing the
internet or ‘whatsapping’.
Besides,
I have witnessed a lot of insolence from some of these young nurses to their
patients in most hospitals and clinics. But, to my surprise most of these
patients normally keep quiet. Shouting at a patient because that patient needs
your service this shows how rude you can be. And as a matter of fact, most of these
inpatients and out-patients being mostly maltreated could be their parents for
Christ sake. I will not be surprise if some of these nurses travel to the
Western countries with these unethical working attitudes. Lest I forget, no
wonder recently a Ghanaian nurse in London was accused of a violent act. And
she was later charged with violent by abusing a dementia patient. Was she
thinking London was Ghana? As the saying goes “Charity begins at home”.
Apparently, this is how ill-mannered and disrespectful most of these nurses
behave in Ghana hence they travel with these inimical attitudes.
Perhaps,
people can attest to the fact that the present behavioural pattern of these
young nurses is nothing to write home about as compared to the then behaviours
of our older nurses’ in the country. The bottom-line here is that most of the
older nurses went into the profession with much dedication and passion so they
worked around the clock to save human lives. Because they believe hardworking
pays unlike the young nurses’ who only think about their monthly allowance and
salaries. Eventually, they mostly end-up venting their anger on innocent
patients.
As
the saying goes “Good names are better than riches”. I therefore entreat the
Ministry of Health (MoH) to make sure nurses’ perform their earthly duties with
much dedication and devotion and also adhere to their ethical codes. In
conclusion, nurses must be patient-friendly because if these nurses cannot be
friendly to these patients then who else can they be friendly to in their field
of work?
By: Adjetey Emmanuel
The writer is
a Freelance Journalist
Email:
adjeteyemmanuel@gmail.com
Tel: 0247265478.
