Association Seeks Review Of Nurses’ Salaries, Increase Of Motivational Packages

The Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives (NANNM), Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital, Yaba, Lagos, has urged the Federal Government to review the salary scale of nurses to make the profession more attractive.
Its unit Chairman, Mrs Fatimetu Olaoni, spoke with newsmen yesterday in Lagos, in commemoration of the 2021 Nurses Week celebrated annually between May 6 and May 12.
Olaoni said that the remuneration of nurses was too poor and should be reviewed upward.
According to her, there is also need for the government to increase the motivational packages for nurses, while sustaining the existing ones.
“Motivation and specialisation are keys to healthcare service delivery. When a workforce is well motivated, there is bound to be increase in productivity.
“When people are not being motivated, they are deprived and not treated well.
“There are chances that they may not put-in their best to the job, and can even search for better working environment elsewhere to operate.
“Availability of well-defined career pathways and end-points as opposed to what is present with improve welfare package like indemnity, insurance, modified allowances, health insurance and opportunities for advancement are some of the motivational packages to encourage the nurses,” she said.
feel inferior and cannot boldly step to uphold the profession,” Ezeh said.
Another psychiatric nurse, Mrs Gloria Dauda, decried the high rate at which nurses were migrating to other countries to operate.
Dauda attributed the development to poor working conditions surrounding their operation in Nigeria, and called for a change in the narrative.
“Many nurses have left the country to other countries in search of better working conditions.
“As a result, those of us that remain are being used as salves. And if nothing is done to address the situation, time will come when no single nurse will be found in the Nigeria medical chain,” she said.