How To Become A Registered Nurse And Midwifery In Nigeria

Nurse and Midwives

Nursing is one of the health professions in Nigeria. Job opportunities are high within and outside Nigeria. The salary is average worldwide and command respect.

With these many benefits come the difficult part. To become a professional nurse, you must be formally educated in an approved school of nursing. There are two types of school of nursing. They have their one advantage and mode of admission.

University School Of Nursing (BNSc)

Most universities in Nigeria offer nursing courses under a five years period programme. It leads to the award of registered nurse (RN) certificate, registered midwifery (RM)/registered public health nurse (RPHN) and bachelor of nursing science (BNSc).

Read Also: School of nursing in Nigeria

To be eligible to enrol in a university, you need five credit passes in English language, mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology/health sciences from O'level. Some universities accept not more than two sittings while the strict ones accept only one sitting. Candidates must also write the joint admission and matriculation board (JAMB) unitary tertiary matriculation examination (UTME) with a good score.

Some universities accept direct entry (DE) with good grades from any health related discipline into year two. Examples of acceptable health related discipline are community health officer (CHO), national certificate examination (NCE) [physical/health education, science education, nutrition, home economics], health superintendent, RN, medical laboratory science, etc.

The first three years is to acquire RN. There is a professional examination organized by the National association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives (NANNM) at year three. Year four and five is to acquire either a registered public health nurse (RPHN) or a registered midwifery (RM). The whole programme is given a BNSc certificate. So a graduate from a university gets BNSc, RN and RM/RPHN.

Because the majority of nurses don't like to further their academic in nursing profession, only two universities offer courses in nursing from masters to doctorate level. They are Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) and University of Ibadan (UI). There is little hope that more universities will introduce them soon.

General Nursing Programme

There are hundreds of schools of nursing scattered across the nation. It is a hospital based management system. They ran a nursing programme for just three years leading to the award of RN. At year three, candidates join others in writing the professional examination.

To get enrolled into these programmes, all is needed is five credit passes in English language, mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology/health sciences in O'level. Most require not more than two sittings. Foreigners who wish to study through this programme must submit the foreign examination board result and an evaluation report or equivalent grading from the federal ministry of education.

Post Basic Midwifery

RN who wish to add the title of RM to their name must enrol into this programme. It runs for a year. Most schools of nursing have this too. RM and RN can receive a practicing license to start a work-study programme with a year of professional on the job training.

Read Also: How to become an auxiliary nurse in Nigeria

Nurses can specialise in clinical programmes such as public health and policy nurse, critical care nurse, orthopaedic nurse, etc. They all run for a year except nurse anesthetist programs that run for 18 months.

All registered nurses are mandated to go for a one year internship programme. This programme is in an approved hospital where the nurse is given in house training by experienced nurses. They are paid and in most cases given accommodation.