Improve working environment to reduce exodus
I refer to your report “Serve locally, PM urges nurses” (Star, May 15).
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s call to trained nurses to serve locally rather than go abroad is timely and is in the interest of the nation as a whole. It is distressing to note that about 400 of our nurses leave the country yearly to serve overseas. Most of these nurses are well trained and experienced and their exodus is a real lost to the nation.
Nursing is an important and essential part of the medical profession dedicated to the care of the sick. A dedicated and empathetic nurse goes a long way to comfort, allay the fears and subsequently hasten the recovery of a patient from his ailments. It is the nurse, more than the doctor, who plays the role of a reassuring mother to those terminally ill and dying.
It takes a long time to train a nurse and longer still for them to acquire the necessary experience and skills in nursing the infirm. Not everyone becomes a good and dedicated nurse. It is a vocation to which many are called but few remain faithful.
We hope the Malaysian Nurses Association (MNA) and the Health Ministry will heed the call of the Prime Minister to work together to ensure that our country does not run dry of experienced and capable nurses.
The migration of our nurses is one of the causes of their perpetual shortage in our health and medical services.
It is important to look at the causes why our nurses leave the country and take remedial measures to arrest their exodus. These nurses are unfairly accused of abandoning for higher remuneration overseas. I am sure the Health Ministry cannot be so naive as to seriously believe in such a simplistic reason for the exodus.
Many of these nurses have families and children and it is not an easy decision to leave their loved ones behind to go to an unknown faraway land just for some monetary rewards. It is truly an emotion wrecking experience in most cases in making such a decision to migrate. In fact many of them are paid well locally in government and especially in private medical centres
The main reason for them to leave is unsatisfactory and unhappy working environment where their hard work is least appreciated and rewarded.
Most of our nurses work under very stressful conditions. Very often, they are managed in a regimented manner where dissent is not tolerated. They are forced to accept unfair decisions regarding work shifts, leave and overtime without protest.
In a system that is so commercialized and profit motivated, dedication among the staff, is the last thing that is recognized and rewarded.
The Ministry of Health must strive to create a more conducive environment at all medical and heath facilities for our nurses where their services are recognized, appreciated and appropriately rewarded. This will go a long way to reduce the migration of our trained nurses to greener pastures abroad.
Dr.Chris Anthony
3 comments:
That was a great post. Nurses do play a huge role.
http://thetimemastery.com
Wazzup Doc !
Either the P.M. is sleeping or he is not doing anything at all because at this very moment, many trained nurses are seeking greener pastures. Even the lecturers who train people to be nurses are flying off to Saudi Arabia to be paid at least RM 7000 per month and on their application form for unpaid leave, they state health reasons. If they have diabetes and hypertension, why are they running around the world, right Doc ? And why do the in charge grant them that leave ? And why does the government allow them to take that unpaid leave ? Sometimes the government knows that things are happenning but they refuse to do anything about it and they refuse to give comments too. The status of a nurse is deteriorating. There is no quality nursing training which means there is no quality nursing care for the patients. Except for the highest post that is the Director of Nursing, nurses are under doctors and managers of other backgrounds. Nurses cannot excel because they bring down themselves. They compete dirtily in order to climb up the ladder of success. People on the outside do not see all these. They still think that we are a big happy family. If we are so happy, then why are there nurses leaving ?
Thank you for your comments.
Yes if the nurses are happy why are they leaving?For fun ?
I fully understand your predicament.We know the reasons but unable to say out loud.
The standard of nursing,in fact the whole medical care, is going to the dogs.
We are becoming strangers in our own country,the country we helped to build.
Dr.Chris
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