There’s no doubt that nursing is one of the most dangerous and stressful jobs and yet it is not accorded with the rightful remuneration. Just imagine being infected with an incurable disease while on the job, exposure to radiation and chemicals. If you work in a psychiatric facility, that’s a different story. Some mental health nurses have been deformed, ears bitten, have been slapped, and sustained various degrees of musculoskeletal injuries just because they were doing their job.

It is so sad that in spite of all the sacrifices, the nurse is blamed for every bad thing that happens in the health facility. From their own managers to the general public, the nurse has become an object of blame.

Oftentimes hospital managers fail to provide the necessary logistics needed to carry out various nursing procedures. Even though the nurse is able to improvise and use the little resources to carry out procedures, should anything adverse happen, it is the nurse that is blamed. That is when you will receive queries and be subjected to committees forgetting that it is as a result of lack of logistics and resources that leads to these happenings.

Most nurses of today cannot speak for themselves and stand for what is right. As a nurse, your duty is to carry out your nursing procedures and other activities. It is also someone else’s duty to ensure that the necessary resources you need as a nurse to carry out your procedures are provided. If such people fail to do their job, the nurse shouldn’t suffer for their inefficiencies.

There also seem to be general misconceptions about the role of nurses in the healthcare setting. Since nurses form the majority of the workforce in the health service, people often cannot differentiate them from other health workers. But there are different categories of workers in the hospital including doctors, pharmacists, biomedical staff, counselors, health information officers, cleaners, etc. Sometimes I believe nurses do not give adequate information to clients/patients and are therefore left to speculate. Other times too, it’s just the pure bad attitude of some clients/patients. If patients don’t get their folders on time, it’s the nurse’s fault; if patients don’t get their food on time, it’s the nurse’s fault; if a doctor is late, it’s the nurse’s fault; if the pharmacy does not supply medication on time, it’s the nurse’s fault.

The hospital is not our personal property, we are also workers just like every other person who works in the hospital.