Pastor Peters Osawaru Omoragbon, President, Nurses Across the Borders International, has defended Nigerian nurses in the United Kingdom, saying they are intelligent and not involved in any kind of fraud.
Pastor Omoragbon took the stand in his intervention at the 2024 Nigeria Nursing Leaders Conference which took place in Abuja, with a strong defence for the Nigerian nurses accused of Computer Based Test (CBT) fraud by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), United Kingdom.
He said, “I feel I should mention this. A lot of you have heard about the CBT saga, because the press in the United Kingdom is awash with stories that Nigerian nurses are involved in fraud, and that they entered the NMC register fraudulently. I stand here with every sense of responsibility to state that our nurses are intelligent, they are not involved in any kind of fraud, and I just want to tell you that even the investigation carried out by the NMC, said that the system was not tampered with, two they said, everything was okay. I am quoting them, they said the nurses finished their exam in such a manner that, when they compared it with the global standard, their timing were shorter. The question, I want to ask, is if an exam is for two hours and you answer it in one hour, is that a crime or fraud? So that is exactly why the nurses are being punished. The council accused them of finishing yoo fast, and that there maybe one or two proxy writers. Who were the proxy writers? They should identify them. You can group over 500 nurses together for one crime without any proof of all committing the crime. If anyone is found culpable, he or she should be made to face the music. There is nothing like collective punishment for a crime. Everyone is investigated individually and tried individually. None of them has been identified for copying anything.”
He revealed that when the examination was retaken in the UK, the nurses passed the exam even earlier than they passed it in Nigeria. “The reason why I am saying this, is, I am not affected but, it is dear to my heart. Now the nurses were asked to retake the same exam in United Kingdom, do you know that some of them passed the exam faster than they passed in Nigeria.”
Omoragbon maintained that the simplest exam in competency test is the CBT test and queried why those that passed other harder courses would cheat in CBT
“Of all the tests of competency, CBT exam done by internationally educated nurses, the simplest exam is the CBT test, the IELTS, is more difficult, the OSCE is more difficult, so the nurse who passed the OSCE exam that is supervised in United Kingdom and then because she passed the CBT exam so fast . in Nigeria, is fraudulent! What about the result that was done in the UK, they gave them three opportunities, and they did it at one sitting and they passed. If you accused the nurses of fraud in the Nigeria exam, what about the one done in the UK.
He urged the council to take the matter up and carry out an independent investigation in the interest of the nurses and Nigeria as a whole. “I know the government is interested, the council should be concerned because these nurses were registered from this council, the council should not just sit down, the council should look at it, set up a panel to carry out their own independent investigation; not based on whatever report from the United Kingdom, because those reports are biased, and not tenable. The NMC cannot be the judge and prosecutor in their own case. if you accused anybody of committing a crime, a criminal offence, you take them to court, and when the court establishes they commit that crime, then, they will be punished.”
He said something urgent must be done in that regard as many of the nurses are suffering because of what he called profiling. “But now a lot of our nurses are suffering because of this profiling, I call it profiling, but hopefully, as time goes on, the law will take its course, and those nurses will be exonerated.
Go for political power, Omoragbon urges nurses
By Success Damian
Pastor Peters Omoragbon, the President of the Nurses Across the Borders International, has urged nurses in Nigeria to do everything possible to seek political power for the benefit of the members.
Omoragbon gave the advice in his intervention at the 2024 Nigeria Nursing Leaders Conference which took place in Abuja, on Thursday, April 18, 2024.
He said, “As much as I encourage and I appreciate the need for us to read up to the highest level, I also want us to be more interested in political power.”
Omoragbon while espousing the need for political power enlightened his colleagues on what is obtainable in the Federal Ministry of Health and the need for nurses to head some of the departments that should ordinarily be under the purview of the nurses. “Now if you look at the structure of the federal ministry of health, there are eight departments of the federal ministry of health, and all the eight departments are all occupied by one single professional group. The ministry of health is a multi-disciplinary ministry where you have many professional groups, not just doctors and nurses, but nurses form the single largest professional group within the health system anywhere in the world. Now a situation where you have a department of hospital services and you have a division of nursing services under the hospital services headed by a director of nursing services, and hospital services is headed by director of hospital services, the question I want to ask is, do you have two directors, that is lower director and senior director?. In the civil service, a director is a director, and their grade level is grade level 17, so it depends on when you are promoted a Director or employed that determines your seniority level. And so the argument that, the departments were created for administrative purpose is deliberate ploy to deny nurses their autonomy by the Federal Ministry of Health is untenable. We must resist this continuous subjugation and oppression.
“How are directors appointed, they are appointed at the recommendation of the minister of health who is appointed by president but there is this general notion that it is only one professional group in the ministry that can occupy the office of the minster. The office of the minister is a political appointment, it is not based on whether you are a doctor or you are a nurse. It is purely administrative not professional or clinical. That is why every professional group within the ministry is headed by a Director. So the Minister of health could have been a nurse, a doctor, a pharmacist or even a non-healthcare professional. In United Kingdom, you don’t have doctors occupying the office of the secretary for health, he is a civil servant, and so, I want us to remove this mentality from our collective psyche, as we are progressing, that only a particular profession can occupy the office of the Minister” Omoragbon advocated.
He said the nursing authorities should step up their game by not only fighting for salary increment but to also seek political power for the members. “Enough of the fact that you begin to fight for enhance salary structure, whatever, in our days it was enhanced university structure, we cannot continue to do the same thing over and over again, and expect a change; it doesn’t work that way. As you improve on your training, also begin to show interest in political power, because if you don’t have anybody there to speak for you, you will waste your time, that is just what I want to appeal to us. So whichever way we want to go about it, we can also include political studies in our curriculum.”
