What lessons have we imbibed from all that happened in the year of the Nurse & Midwife?
The voice of the pandemic that started speaking towards the end of 2019 [November 2019] was so loud that it almost looked as if it drowned the sounds of celebration that we were enjoying, as a profession in the year 2020.
The year 2020 looked like a historical cocktail of some sort. Having a sweet blend of celebrating heroes, and at the same time a sour taste of fighting a pandemic, amidst the worldwide political upheaval that was at that time rocking this great boat.
We all can still feel traces of the echo of that ominous voice in the air. The pandemic has opened our eyes to the huge pluggable gaps that exist in the fragile structures of our healthcare systems – the scales have fallen from our eyes.
We all can still feel traces of the echo of that ominous voice in the air. The pandemic has opened our eyes to the huge pluggable gaps that exist in the fragile structures of our healthcare systems – the scales have fallen from our eyes.
Systems that boasted, were amazed at how the pandemic was able, within months to bring them to their knees, begging for mercy.
If there is one vital lesson that we have learned (or should have learned) as a race, it is to invest in the healthcare sector, more than we invest in military hardware & other social & political projects that do not contribute to our safety & preservation.
The systems have also seen that there has to be deliberate & continuous investment in the training, equipping & empowering of Nurses & other healthcare professionals. They were the ones who suffered more from the effects of the pandemic – they deserve much more.
They sacrificed their time, sanity, safety & most importantly their irreplaceable lives (In 2020, a staggering 7,000 healthcare professionals died while taking care of people infected with Coronavirus, according to a report by Amnesty International – only God knows what the recent statistics will be).
Developing countries, like Nigeria, may have also learned their lessons, we hope so. We also hope that they are making wise decisions to plug the holes & stop this massive (historical) exodus of Nurses & Healthcare Professionals out of the country.
Though by providence, or by some act of God, African countries did not suffer much from the effect of this scourge, as did other developed countries, defying the horrible prophecies given by some advanced statistical bureau.
After the pandemic, we have become more cautious, about how prepared we are in managing natural disasters; like the coronavirus outbreak.
The world was not prepared for what it saw. We were taken by surprise. But now, we may be better prepared. We have been exposed, so one can say that we have acquired a form of “Preparatory Immunity,” that will be of immense importance in the future… to be continued…
