Aliko Dangote College of Nursing Sciences Bauchi has matriculated 501 students for midwives, community midwives and direct entry community midwives into basic midwifery program for its 2021/2022 academic session.
Provost of the college, Rakiya Saleh at the matriculation ceremony reemphasized the need for the matriculated students to take their studies seriously as the government and the college are doing their best to ensure a conducive learning environment.
She assured that, the college will continue to fulfil its mandate of not only imparting knowledge and skills but also attitude and character and hoped that the contribution of the students will facilitate the actualization of the state government’s efforts of strengthening the health workforce and service delivery among other components of the health system.
The provost said she was optimistic that with the efforts and the commitment put in by all stakeholders, it is practically evident that there will be a significant improvement in the states’ health services delivery especially the recent employment of doctors, nurses, midwives/ community midwives and other health workers will greatly assist in reducing the high rate of maternal mortality and morbidity.
Rakiya stressed the need for strengthening the training of more community midwives that will go back and work at the primary health care centres, by introducing the foundation one-year program (FYP) for better service delivery at the grassroots.
According to her, the college established in 2012 and saddled with the responsibility of producing all cadres of nurses and midwives that will man the health facilities in the state and increased its indexing capacity with the approval for two streams of admissions to accommodate all students who passed their examinations.
“Today the college with the support and unprecedented interventions of the present administration ranging from the completion of abandoned projects to approval and commencement of new constructions/renovations of infrastructures to meet the accreditation requirements has facilitated the attainment of full accreditation from the status of provisional accreditation with 50% indexing capacity in 2017, to full accreditation with 100% indexing capacity in October 2019, two-stream of admissions, the commencement of community midwifery and nursing programs as approved by the NMCN in 2020/2021 which we have started this year, obtained dual accreditation status from the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) and the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria (NMCN) in march 2022, before the deadline of 2023 NMCN reforms that all colleges of nursing in Nigeria must either join the NBTE or NUC.
“The approval to commence the ND/HND program will also upgrade the academic certificate of its graduates. While the two streams’ admission policy increases admission slots to 464 against 226 yearly.
“Let me crave your indulgence to digress a bit and state that the world health assembly (WHA) because of the central role nursing plays in the health system, has adopted a new global Strategic Direction for Nursing and Midwifery 2021-2025 (SDNM) and urges all nations to implement it.”
It further stated that “Nurses are the lifeblood of the health system everywhere and they must be recognized for what they are, a precious commodity that needs to be nurtured and protected” as nurses form more than 60% of the health workforce in the health system.
“The choice of our students to study nursing is a wise decision because society needs nurses and midwives more than ever to change the poor health indices. Therefore, I look forward to the successful completion of your programme within the stipulated time and I would therefore like to register my profound appreciation to the Bauchi State Government under the leadership of His Excellency Sen. Bala Abdulkadir Mohammed CON (Kauran Bauchi) for his support and assistance to the college.”
