Nurses, The Heart Of Health Care System By Olabanji Joel

Nursing as the heart of health care system means a lot, medicine and surgery might be the brain but in medicine, it has been proven that when the heart stops working the brain brain dies within 4-5mins. Considering the anatomy and physiology of the heart, any condition affecting the heart which causes abnormal or irregular act activity will affect all the body organs with effect greatly felt on the vital organs e.g. Brain. Someone once approached me and said “Doctors are the brains behind every successful treatment in the hospital” and I told him “yes but the brain will be dead in less than 5 minutes without the activity of the heart, as important as the brain is, it needs the blood being pumped by the heart to survive”.

It has been an established fact over the years that no health care facility can survive without a Nurse and this is an evidence that nursing services are inevitable. In the developed countries, nurses are not being toiled with because the value of nursing is known and well appreciated. 

A friend in United Kingdom said ” Nursing is the mitochondrial of the health care system”. Boris Johnson, the UK Prime Minister said in a video he released after he recovered from Covid-19 that “He specially appreciates the nurses especially the two nurses who were with him while he was battling for his life, he further said that they were with him and never allowed anything to go wrong”. Despite how deadly Covid-19 is, Nurses taking care of infected patients stays around the patients for 24hours despite high probability of coming down with the virus.

Nursing is caring, a profession that welcomes one to the world and stays with one at the last minute of a person’s life. The call on other health professionals during life saving periods is not weakness for the nurses, it’s a strength because without the prompt call with intervention, many lives would have been lost today. Olabanji Joel

The nursing services at each point which may look awkward to many comes with dignity for the nurses, oooh, is it about dressing fungating ulcers, taking care of patient who have messed himself? Patient assessment, diagnosis, intervention, implementation and evaluation? Nursing is broad, nursing is life itself. 

I celebrate all nurses out there, nurses who get blamed for not calling the doctor to do his work, get blamed when the record officer is not seen, get blamed when portals are not performing their duties, get blamed when samples from the laboratory don’t get tested early, get blamed when the blood is being delayed from the haematology department. Nurses virtually get blamed over everything that goes wrong in the hospital and with this, we still remain at our best.

I celebrate all Nurses out there, your selflessness and services is never taken for  granted. As this year’s international nurses’ week is being celebrated, we hail you all and pray for you too. May God watch over you as you watch over others. Amen.

Take time to celebrate a nurse today, nurses are those who maintain equilibrium in life, their services is is always aimed at actualisation of optimum wellbeing even at the state of last breath.

By Olabanji Joel

A Nurse, Writer and Socialist.