A great number of Nigerians who graduated in various professions, other than nursing, and then travelled out of the country for greener pastures are embracing the profession widely known for providing care for the sick.
Many Nigerians living abroad have taken up nursing as a profession even though they have degrees in Engineering, Accountancy, Agricultural Economics, Sociology, which they bagged from various higher institutions back in Nigeria, and their reasons for “porting” makes for interesting reading.
The career change by these Nigerians living abroad is not unconnected to the attractiveness of nursing in Europe, North America and some Asian countries, where premium is placed on the profession, but which back home in Nigeria has continued to be plagued by poor remuneration, unfriendly government policies and hostile operating environment.
These constraints to the nursing profession in Nigeria are what compelled the Registrar of the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria, Faruk Abubakar, to disclose in February this year that 42,000 nurses had left the country in the past three years.
And to lend credence to the facts and figures given by Abubakar, the United Kingdom Nursing and Midwifery Council said a month later that the number of registered Nigerian-trained nurses in the UK had increased suddenly to 625% in the six months leading to September last year.
The Council said that Nigerian-trained nurses in the UK increased from 1670 registered nurses available in 2022 to 12,099 recorded increase from April to September 2023.
Even though the Council mentioned “Nigerian-trained” nurses, not a lot was said about UK-trained Nigerian nurses resident in the country, or even Nigerians with British citizenship, who make a living through nursing; the same thing goes for many other countries who publish similar reports.
Truth be told, when it comes to doing all it would take to survive unemployment and economic hardship in a foreign country, many Nigerians living abroad can by no stretch of the imagination be called lazy, rather they qualify as one of the most resilient people on earth, as attested to by their determination to switch profession.
Adaramola, as she simply wants to be known, is one such Nigerian who took the bull by the horns and made the big leap into nursing. She graduated from University in Nigeria but could not secure a job in the country.
Fortunately, her then fiancé, whom she later got married to, obtained his UK permanent residence and played a significant role in her moving abroad. He was also instrumental in her transition to nursing.
“I graduated from school but there was no job in the country. I even wanted to start my own business but capital was an issue to me.
“My fiancé was in the UK at the time but he was struggling with his finances. He did not have his papers and things, generally, were not so smooth.
“Miraculously, he got his permanent residence and before he asked me to come over, he came to Nigeria and we got married.
“Eventually, I went to meet him and months passed but I could not land a job with my Nigerian degree.
“My husband then suggested nursing to me. He said he knew about three Nigerians in his church who went into nursing even though they had degrees in other courses.
“I thought deeply about it and then decided to enroll in one of the universities here. I graduated without much fuss and here I am earning my money through nursing.”
Another Nigerian, Nneka Nnawuogor, told The Point that she endured the horrors of a failed marriage before she eventually met her white American partner who made her “fall in love” with nursing.
“I used to live in Europe with my Nigerian husband and we have a son together.
“The marriage, however, crashed and it seemed that I had been left alone in the world.
“I started frequenting online dating platforms and by a remarkable stroke of luck, I met my current partner there. He is a white American, and in time, he asked me to come to the States.
“After I got there, he promised to enroll me in school and suggested nursing to me as a new line of profession, but I was skeptical at first.
“Although I have my certificate in Agricultural Economics, which I obtained in Nigeria, my partner said it would be useless here.
“Another thing was that I hated the sight of blood and I was not too good with the sciences. He told me not to worry or panic.
“I then went to college and met six other Nigerians with degrees in other fields, which they got in Nigeria, but who ventured newly into nursing like me and together with my partner’s support, everything became easy from that point.
“To cut a long story short, I have now built a house in Nigeria through being a qualified nurse in America. Everything is indeed possible,” Nnawuogor said with triumph in her voice.
““Although I have my certificate in Agricultural Economics, which I obtained in Nigeria, my partner said it would be useless here”
An erstwhile President of the National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives, Adeniji Abdulrafiu, told The Point that he was not surprised at the news of Nigerians going abroad, attending nursing schools there and then making a good living from the profession.
While addressing reasons for the trend, Abdulrafiu lamented that nurses were not accorded their due recognition in Nigeria and that when Nigerians travel abroad, they see the glistering aspects of nursing that are absent in the country.
“It will definitely not be a surprise to know that Nigerians without prior nursing training or experience are going abroad to start a career in it because I know the stuff the nursing practice is made of in some of these developed countries.
“Some Nigerians who turn to nursing over there came to the profession because they saw the glistering aspects of the nursing profession that you cannot see in Nigeria.
“Nurses are not recognized in Nigeria. For instance, during the outbreak of the Ebola virus, which killed Ameyo Adadevoh, there were three nurses who also succumbed to the disease.
“Sadly, the government and administrators only talked about the doctor.
“Nobody mentioned the heroes (nurses) that worked with her; that is why we say that nurses are the unsung heroes of the health industry in Nigeria.
“So, because of incidents like that in Nigeria, not many people will want to take the nursing profession in Nigeria,” he said.
Abdulrafiu said, too, that sometimes the qualification required for studying nursing abroad makes the switch easier for Nigerians there.
According to him, Nigeria has a far more standard qualification for studying nursing than many foreign countries.
He said, “Another thing is that the qualification to study nursing in Nigeria is far more standard than over there.
“In Nigeria, we train what is universally called polyvalent nurses as against the univalent nurses that are trained in some foreign countries.
“If you want to go and train as a mental health nurse in some of these countries, you enroll for mental health nursing, but you cannot do that in Nigeria.
“What you must first do is to be trained as a general nurse, and the qualification to be trained as a nurse in Nigeria is that you must have credit passes in English language, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Biology.”
Abdulrafiu said he served as the Chairman of the Registration Committee of the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria and that when Nigerians who went abroad to train as nurses but without the complete O-level qualifications come to the Council (to register as nurses in Nigeria), they would be requested to go and resit the examinations “at the O-level of competence.”
“Why we are doing this is that Nigeria is a very competitive market and our approach to issues is not like in some other places.
“We do things more thoroughly, and in Nigeria here, we spend more years studying in the area of nursing and specialisation,” he added.
Moreover, Abdulrafiu said that apart from the lucrativeness of nursing profession abroad, a lot of Nigerians who moved out of the country are fast to embrace it because of the available flexible working hours and the liberty to be able to negotiate conditions of service.