08.FEB.11

EDITOR: I am writing in response to the article titled PAPPY SHOW AT NURSING SCHOOL, published in the Midweek Searchlight on February 1, 2011.

I think that student forgot to state some of the major problems that the students face on a day-to-day basis. Apart from the school being politically motivated and understaffed, student nurses at the school are treated as if they were in kindergarten.{{more}}

The Dean and the other staff members have taken exams to the point where the Dean has to make the final decision on a practical exam. Can you imagine that the Dean has to have the results before they are actually issued to a student? The nursing school operates as a friend-to-friend institution, not an institution that wants to train our young ladies to become professionals.

The other issue is uniforms: Students are given 3 uniforms when they are accepted into the school, as nurses you are supposed to be clean. But yet, students are being sent home for uniforms, saying that they are washed out, and to go and make their own, while in fact they are supposed to given uniforms at the start of each school year. One of the tutors said that the government doesn’t have money.

They boast about how they have increased the number of students being accepted into the School of Nursing on a yearly basis, but yet they choose who they want to graduate from the nursing programme; for example, if they accept 50, they make sure and fail the students until they get the batch right down to 20- 25. I ask the question, isn’t it the same 20-25 that they said the former administration was training? Why accept so many students and you know you do not want them?

I think that a serious action must be taken at the nursing school. The tutors act as though they were born nurses, as if they never made mistakes as students; they teach the students about empathy and putting yourself into other people’s shoes when dealing with patients, but they themselves forget that they were once students and yet they treat us like children.

The Dean lives at Largo Height and yet on some days, if students reach to school early, the school is locked up and they have to be standing in the yard because the school is locked. Students used to be allowed to go for the key at the Montrose police station nearby, but, they put a stop to it, so if none of the tutors or the yard man don’t arrive at the school early, students are left to stand there until whenever they get to school.

The other issue is they want to tell you how to comb your hair. They say that certain hair styles are not appropriate. Is this a tertiary institution? They have pay and wear and they ask the students to wear casual clothes and pay a fee, but if several students fail to show up in casual wear and decide to wear their uniform, they are termed as being difficult and not adhering to rules. The other divisions that comprise the College do not have a problem if their students do not wear casual clothes, but the Dean makes it seem like a big issue at the nursing division and then again you are being told how to dress.

I think the necessary officials need to take a look into the Nursing Division. There needs to be a change to benefit our young aspiring nurses. The Dean and the tutors need to realize that these students are adults and they need to treated with respect and empathy, like they teach them to have for their patients.

The septic tank at the nursing division has been continously over flowing and causing a foul scent to the students since last year and nothing is being done about it. Faeces is seen floating around outside the tank when it overflows and the students cannot breathe the fresh air; all the windows have to be closed up from the scent. Tutors come into the class and they run back out, and we are being left there to inhale the scent of the septic tank.

I am calling on the Minister of Education and the officials to take a serious look at the Division of Nursing Education, students have grievances and they need to be heard.

Student Nurse