MINISTRY of Health’s chief nursing and midwifery officer Colleen Wilson is demanding an end to “backdoor” nursing school entries within the three institutions that teach nursing in Fiji.
This is after Fiji Nursing Council director Silina Waqa revealed that some nursing students scored as low as 25 per cent in English and 23 per cent in biology in their exams.
“Yesterday, I was going through all the applications for registration of the students, and I was a bit worried,” Ms Waqa said. “In one school, the student they got in had English 25 per cent, Biology had 23 per cent – sort of, so that too had to be standardised.
“I told the registration and licensing officer not to give any licence if that is the qualification. Don’t give any licence for that person to go into the clinical area.
“I’m getting very worked up just seeing those qualifications that are coming through.”
In response, Ms Wilson said that nursing was a profession where one error could cost a life, and academic standards must reflect that responsibility.
“This comment that had come in has laid a platform for me to maybe have another discussion with them (institutions) and look back at their processes so that we are not the ones who are going to be receiving graduates who had just come in, while some who had passed, and passed well, did not get a position to come to nursing school.
“If that’s a backdoor kind of thing, then that should stop.”
She said that students may be able to use AI to pass their exams, but one cannot gamble with a patient’s life.
“There’s the online programs that we have these days, the AIs and all that, and anybody can get through that.
“But you can’t gamble with life, not in nursing. Yeah, nursing is a very different profession, simply because you deal with lives, and one mistake will cost that life forever.
“And will cost the nurse’s career as well.”
Ms Wilson said she will be meeting with the three institutions soon to talk about this.