The Bayelsa branch of the National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives (NANNM), has lamented deployed the high rate of quackery in the state and pledged to tackle the menace.

While pointing out the adverse effect on public health, the association said that the ugly trend was giving nursing a bad name and sought the support of stakeholders in the health sector to stamp out quackery.

The chairperson of NANNM, Sonia Andabai, said quackery was more prevalent in the private hospitals in the State.

Mrs Andabai appealed to medical practitioners running private clinics and other professional colleagues to desist from providing apprenticeships that would produce quack nurses.

She said anyone caught would not be spared “as the NANNM Bayelsa Council is on their trail.”

“Bayelsa is one of the states where unauthorised apprenticeship for quack nurses in the private clinics is prevalent,” she lamented.

The NANNM chairman said that the Nursing and Midwifery Council was currently reviewing the law guiding nursing practice, adding that it was before the National Assembly to provide stiffer penalties for quacks in the nursing profession.

According to her, the draft amendment proposes imprisonment upon conviction without an option of a fine for quackery.

Mrs Andabai called on the state government, Federal Ministry of Health and the committee responsible for quackery to step up their surveillance roles to ensure that quackery was eliminated.

“In a clinic, you may have only one or two qualified nurses and the rest are quacks because they cannot pay the qualified nurses.

“I want to also beg my fellow professional colleagues to desist from training quack nurses. Why is it that those who open the clinic protect their professions and do not train quacks of their own profession?

 “If quackery is good for nurses, it should also be good for pharmacy and medicine.

“I am very bitter about the issue of quackery. It is very high in Bayelsa, I want to also say that Bayelsa is one of the states that are turning out the highest number of apprenticeships for quack nurses in the hospitals and clinics.

“They should please desist from it. And any other nurse that knows that she is responsible wherever she is should desist because if we get them they would be brought to book,” she warned.

Mrs Andabai also called for improvement in the welfare of nurses, saying that certain cadres of nurses were not being paid their teaching allowances and appealed for the reinstatement of the teaching allowances for teaching nurses at every cadre.

She also appealed to the Head of Service of Bayelsa to implement the Call Duty Allowance of all nurses that was adjusted since 2014.

She said that Bayelsa was the only state amongst the South-South that was yet to pay call duty allowance approved for nurses.