Failure of nurses, midwives incredible

The Nurses and Midwives Council of Malawi is supposed to accredit and regulate operations of nursing colleges.

The council is supposed to assess whether the colleges have the capacity to meet the standards and to guide or shut down those that are found wanting.

However, it is sad to note that such measures are not being utilised by the council.

There are many unanswered questions pertaining to the current system by the regulatory body.

The system seems too rigid to inspect and appreciate the paradigm changes that are constantly occurring and directly affecting nurses and midwives in the country.

It is sad that at the time things are falling apart, the council is busy hiking fees for registration and examinations with unreasonable percentages instead of taking measures to deal with the unimaginably high nurse-patient ratio in our public hospitals.

It is as if these issues mean nothing to them.

The only time you hear of council is when they want to raise their fees.

If not, they will be loud and clear when they come to the wards to investigate misconducts, to revoke licences and to demand registration fees.

Is this all the nurses and midwifery regulatory bodies do in other countries?

If this is it, then we have a big problem to develop the profession.

Has the council adopted some of the roles of the police service?

Remember the recent unbelievably disastrous performance of newly trained nurses and midwives in the council’s licensure examinations in April 2016 results.

One of the major responsibilities of Council is to authorise colleges to practise.

The college is supposed to be subjected to thorough assessments before the council grants the permission.

The mandatory assessments give the council is confident that the college will train the nurses on its behalf in line with their syllabi and standards.

After this rigorous registration process and scrutiny of a college, the students are selected to study nursing or midwifery for three or four years by the learning institution under the blessings of the c council.

After the years of studies, the council comes back to assess the trainees who have completed and passed the approved curriculum.

In nursing, a trainee who successfully passes college examinations for three to four years has fought a good fight.

You see it now?

It is contradictory that after passing college examinations, the trainees fail miserably in the council’s registration examinations.

Imagine only 16 percent of nurses from Christian Health Association of Malawi (Cham) training institutions passed.

Did the colleges mistakenly give underserved certificates to the majority of the students who failed the examinations administered by the council?

Should we say council examinations are tougher than the tests administered by the accredited colleges?

Maybe the lecturers are teaching less than what the council prescribes. The students could be to blame for not comprehending  the council’s questions.

But this is the question: What could be the solution?

The high failure rate could be a sign of dwindling standards in the training institutions. In that case the council must play a leading role in offering the trainers a glimpse of what is expected of them and making sure that necessary measures are put in place to correct the situation on time.

The council should not wait on the sidelines expecting the  trainees to fail  registration tests.

Cham can possibly do much better next time. The high failure rate is really pathetic.

We are sick and tired of complaining about the prevailing shortage of nurses and midwife in public hospitals. It is high time we explored a serious approach to curb these challenges. n