Ibukun had always loved the nursing profession and always knew that she was going to be a nurse. Her impression was shaped early in life, when she had a fracture at the age of eight and was on admission for about three weeks. The nurses who ran the ward were like angels in their white uniforms and they all did their best to make her comfortable during her stay.
So, after completing secondary school, she gained admission into the State School of Nursing, where the school principal addressed them on day one. She warned them that they would be trained properly–with emphasis on environmental hygiene. Thus, there would be allocation of plots for grass cutting, and daily sweeping of designated areas as part of environmental sanitation.
It soon dawned on Ibukun, that the regimen was very strict and military like – for example, it was considered rude to look at your seniors in the face when they were speaking to you.
The experience in the wards was not much better, as the senior nurses were like Commanding Generals who dished out instructions and did not hesitate to insult you – including the use of your physical attributes to humiliate you.
If you were too slow, or did not hear the instructions at the first time of asking, or did not carry out instructions satisfactorily – you will be humiliated and punished severely. Ibukun started wondering if she had accidentally joined a military organisation. This was not the warm, friendly, caring profession she experienced as a child.
After she graduated to earn her diploma as a Registered Nurse (RN), she realised that she required another 18 months of post basic training to qualify as a Registered Midwife (RM). She had already started working with her RN when she met Tolu, an old classmate from secondary school.
Tolu had gone straight to the University to earn a Bachelor of Nursing degree (BNSc), and after five years, had also acquired the RN, RM, RPHN (Registered Public Health Nurse) – all in addition to the BNSc degree.
Ibukun felt bad and disadvantaged. Now, she understood why there was so much animosity between graduate nurses and those who had gone through the traditional nursing school pathway. If only she had known earlier.
As if the frustrations above were not enough, some of the doctors were always impossibly rude and arrogant – and assumed that they were the only intelligent people around. Some were nice though, and she learnt to ignore the rude ones. After she got married and started having children, she really started to struggle with her frequent night shifts and inability to perform her expected duties as a wife and mother – due to her unconventional work hours.
She often got home completely exhausted. Her husband began to complain and once her mother-in-law became involved, things quickly went downhill. The mother-in-law threatened to marry a new wife for her son, if she does not sit up.
The following day at work, she met with the ADN in charge of her ward to explain her predicament and begged to be exempted from night duty temporarily for a month so she could salvage her marriage.
The ADN was unmoved: ‘So, if we exempt you from night shift, who should be doing it? Me? We have all gone through it before. Please, get out of my office and stop wasting my time.’Ibukun left in tears and struggled to get by through her shift.
She was alone with another RN, catering to 24 patients on the Neuro Ward…. the majority of whom required total nursing care: regular turning on their beds, monitoring of vital signs, administration of medications, wound dressing for those with bed sores – she was on her feet all through the shift.
Nurses and other allied health professionals: The work experience can be quite challenging and tough for all health care workers. Unfortunately, it is often worsened by very intolerant senior colleagues who often insist that they also had it rough and so they don’t need to make things easier for younger ones -who they perceive as lazy in any case.
Add inter-professional rivalry and the demands of patients and their relatives to the mix, and you have an environment that is mentally unhealthy for all concerned.
Conclusion: It is our collective responsibility to treat each other with mutual respect and ensure that the difficult and challenging circumstances of working in hospitals, is not made more difficult by our negative attitudes towards junior colleagues and other health care professionals.
Our health (physical, mental and social wellbeing) is in our hands. It’s never too late for a fresh start.
and then