The Nigerian Nurse 

Let's face it...

That nurses in public hospitals in Nigeria are morbidly rude is not in doubt!

They are ever eager to deploy gutter words on patients, doctors and even other nurses. A typical nurses' quarrel in our hospitals is no different from what you see in open markets.

Our nurses are so bestial because they believe nothing would come out of official reports or petitions by way of reprisals!

The impunity of the nurse watered and emboldened by the certainty of getting away unpunished is predicated on many factors:

One... The tendency of senior nurses like nursing sisters and matrons to side with their juniors rather than proceed with official actions against them.

Two... The fear instilled in the heart of an average doctor that a reported erring nurse would initiate a cascade of unpleasant reprisals against him... Ostracized. Harassed. Intimidated...

Three... A wrong notion that looking the other way while evil is being perpetrated translates into fine team spirit! They call it "cooperation"...

Yeah! The situation is so exasperating...

By frontally confronting these issues... fully spurred by my mindset... I was seen as a troublemaker while working in public hospitals. And wife and parents... and even friends not directly affected at that point in time...admonished me to blend with the system..

That after all, other doctors were coping somehow...

That I should simply do what they do!

Dr Tosin Akindele is currently writing his biography, The Tragedy of Truth. He is a medical practitioner and public affairs analyst.