The National Association of Nigerian Nurses and Midwives (NANNM), a Federal Health Institutions Sector, has called on the Federal Government to reconsider the guidelines for verifying their certificates.
The National Chairman of the association, Mr Morakinyo Rilwan, appealed in an interview on Sunday in Kaduna, said the association, after receiving a memorandum from the Federal Government, decided to appeal for the review of the guidelines.
” One of the guidelines stipulates that eligible applicants must have a minimum of two (2) years post qualification experience from the date of the issuance of permanent practising licence.
“In as much as we do not support applications with provisional licence, we recommend that the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria should remove this item.
“This is because requirements for employment should be determined by a prospective employer,” he said.
According to Rilwan, the council shall request a letter of good standing from the Chief Executive Officer of the applicant’s place of work.
He added,” The last nursing training institution attended and responses on these shall be addressed directly to the Registrar/CEO, Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria.
“We reject entirely obtaining a Letter of good standing from the Chief Executive Officer of the applicant’s place of work.
” This is because we consider them as subordinating nurses to the whims of Doctors and a letter of good standing from the last nursing training institution attended amounts to a duplication.
“Processing of verification application takes a minimum of six (6) months.”
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Rilwan said that going by the laudable achievements of the council in the deployment of appropriate information and communication technologies in line with global best practices, verifying an applicant should be a click away.
He said, “Therefore, we recommend that processing of an application for verification should take a maximum of two (2) weeks.
“We sincerely hope that our recommendations will be given due consideration given the uproar this circular has caused in the community of Nigeria nurses.”
It was recalled that the Federal Government had earlier sent a memorandum to the association, which is to be effected by March 1, 2024.
It stated, “The council shall request a letter of Good Standing from the Chief Executive Officer of the applicant’s place(s).
“And the last nursing training institution attended and responses on these shall be addressed directly to the Registrar/CE(), Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria.
“An applicant must have an active practising licence with a minimum of six months to the expiration date.
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“Applicants must upload Certificate(s) of Registration only. Notification of Registration is not acceptable.
“The applicant shall receive prompt notice via his/her email and dashboard on the status of the verification application.
“Processing of verification applications takes a minimum of six (6) months.
“All applicants shall ensure that complete requirements are met before initiating verification application as incomplete documentation shall not be processed.’
According to Rilwan, the implementation of these guidelines takes effect from Ist March 2024.
He added, “All pending verification applications before these revised guidelines will be processed accordingly.”
NAN
3 Comments
Putting nurses on unnecessary conditions for certificate verification can’t bring any positive charges to problem our health care is facing. The best solution to this is to motivate nurses, review their salary package and give them direct employment as they are graduating from schools. It’s not easy to be working in a private hospital and be earning 15,000 naira per month and the council will still be demanding letter of good standing from such employer to verify nurses certificate. Put these nurses in your children shoes.
This is absurd…. Nurses should be motivated, given automatic employment on graduation with good working conditions not all this harsh treatment.
NMCN should follow Global best practices. Verification of certificate should take less than 48 hours and should be free of charge. Other Nursing jurisdictions are not treating their nurses this way. Nursing is never a form slavery. There should be freedom of migration . We have right to improve ourselves.