National president of the Association of General Private Nursing Practitioners of Nigeria (AGPNPN), Prince Balogun Ajiboye has described quackery in the nursing profession as the cause of unavoidable deaths and a major challenge affecting the profession.
He also said insecurity in the country is becoming a serious burden to private nurses from operating in the country.
Prince Ajiboye stated this at the 13th annual general meeting/national scientific conference of the association held in Kaduna with the theme “Nursing and Healthcare Space: Strengthening the Relationship to Improve Public Health”.
He observed that it is a general knowledge that quackery in nursing has created dents to the image of nursing adding that it is also a serious factor implicated among the causes of terrible health indices and high healthcare costs in our nation.
“Quackery activities have sent so many Nigerians to their early grave, example is the case of the death of one popular artist called Mohbad and organ harvesting in Jos. Therefore, I want to use this opportunity to strongly appeal to the government at all levels to be more transparent in dealing with the situation on the ground”.
Ajiboye disclosed that the current statistics say that over 70 percent of Nigerians access healthcare through private facilities, saying, this means less than 30 percent access healthcare through public facilities.
“Worst hit are the poor citizens who are always coming to private facilities to ask for a favour. We are always trying our best because, with the present economic reality of fuel subsidy removal and deregulation of the currency, you can imagine how the poor citizens are passing through,” Ajiboye said.
Speaking on the theme: “Nursing and Healthcare Space: Strengthening the Relationship to Improve Public Health,” the guest speaker, Professor Saleh Ngaski called for collaboration among health professionals in the health space.
He said every part of the health space is as important as the other, saying no one is superior to the other.
