By El Fatini Fatine
Tensions continue to escalate in the health sector. After medical students, it is now nursing students who are stepping up to the plate. An intensified protest program, including the organization of local sit-ins accompanied by marches on October 9, 10, 11, as well as October 15, 16 and 17, 2024, is announced by the National Coordinating Committee of Unemployed Nurses Laureates . And for good reason, qualified policies “ of unacceptable » within the health sector.
Faced with the distress of professionals in the sector and nursing students, the National Coordinating Committee of Unemployed Nurses Laureates (CNC) announced, in a press release, the organization of a national protest rally on Friday 25 October 2024, accompanied by a boycott of courses and hospital internships. These protests will be in addition to local sit-ins and marches planned for October 15, 16 and 17, 2024, with the wearing of black armbands in all nursing training institutes. The objective being to express the discontent and frustration of nursing students.
In this sense, the press release emphasized their indignation at policies that they describe as “unacceptable”. Among which are the integration of civil servants from local authorities into the training provided by their institutes without respecting the required conditions as well as the lack of clarity regarding the duration of their studies. Something which represents, according to them, a flagrant attack on the profession and the integrity of nursing sciences.
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It should be noted that students also deplore the deterioration of the infrastructure of institutes, which are now unable to accommodate the growing number of students. As they strongly denounce their exploitation in order to fill the shortage of nursing staff without compensation.
Faced with this situation, nursing students are threatening to start an open strike of studies and field internships, as well as national raids. A way of making their voices heard and their demands which remain unheard.
In this tense context where the health sector lives to the rhythm of strikes, it seems essential, even imperative, to establish a calm dialogue and to listen to these voices in order to be able to restore trust between students and the government and, at the same time, achieve opportunity, to lasting solutions likely to alleviate the tensions plaguing this sector and to offer the nurses and doctors of tomorrow quality training and favorable internship conditions.
Because, let us remember, their expertise, their dedication and their compassion are the pillars on which the entire health system rests. This is why all stakeholders are called to work hand in hand to combine their efforts and promote these noble professions.
