MY
LIFE, MY PROFESSION
DEACONESS DORCAS OLUWAKEMI SHONIBARE
The Director of Nurses Lagos State Deaconess. Dorcas
Oluwakemi Shonibare (DNS) has called on individual particularly the Christians
to always fear and put God first in their profession, because any profession
without biblical backing is not worth practicing.
She
made this remark in an interview with Anchor News crew. She also enjoined her
colleagues to practice and lead by example; so as to become worthy of
emulation. “I want people to be proud of me, as I am proud of my mentors today”
she said.
Dorcas
Oluwakemi Shonibare who was trained and nurtured by her grandmother and had
practiced other religions in her maternal grandmother’s family before she
finally embraced Christianity; “I gave my life to Christ at the age of 16years
and I never regretted of serving God”.
Excerpt From Her
Utterances
ANC: Madam! How do you relate your profession with your relationship with
God?
My profession is a noble one, it
is found in the book of Exodus 1. When the king instructed that every male
child of the Israelites should be killed. As a result of the fear of God, the
Hebrew Mid-wives refused to yield to Pharaoh’s instruction.
Those mid-wives today are the
nurses in the hospitals. As a result of their obedience, God rewarded them.
ANC: How Do You
Explain Christianity As regards Your Profession?
Christianity is a word that has
its root from the book Act 11:19. When the people in Antioch saw the behaviour
and manners of the Apostles, they concluded that these people behave like
Christ. As a result of this, they were called Christian.
As a person I recognise the place
of God first in my profession before anything else.
ANC: Have You
Compromise In This Profession, When You Are Face With Difficult Situations?
I gave my life to Christ before I
became a nurse – the standard had been laid. Its expedients to be diligent in
your work; because whosoever is diligent in his or her work will stand before
kings and not mean men. She said “ I have not been cutting corners, if I am
cutting corners, I would not have gotten to where I am today – I am what I am today by the grace of God”.
ANC: What Have You
Done To Harmonise The Relationship Between The Nurses And Patient?
Thank you sir; there is no nurse
who was trained to be hostile to his/her patient. I In particular, I have never
be hostile to any patient. When we considered the hostility of the nurses to
the patient, it’s an aberration.
Many Nurses are doing things like
this? Let ask ourselves, why the situation is like this? As a head;
I have put up some strategies
which include: -
-
I
usually, meet with leaders of every unit to look into the activities of every
nurse. I have quarterly meeting with them.
-
I
have it in my budget i.e. the budget of the Lagos state Ministry of Health to
conduct capacity building for nurses which I do organise annually. As a result
of this, we realised that there is a need to train champions. These champions
will in turn monitor their colleagues in various hospitals to identify the bad
from the good.
-
Thirdly,
about the bad eggs, our plan is to back list them on the major newspaper. By
the time they see themselves on the Newspaper they will seat up.
-
We
have plan to empower our patient to be able to demand for their rights and
possibly give us instant report: i.e. recording the voices of the nurse and
taking their pictures as well.
-
Lagos
State Government is walking tirelessly with the NGO to empower the nurses and
health workers generally. So we are on course and believe our efforts will
yield good result.
ANC:
What Is Your Advice To Your Colleagues?
My Advice To MY Colleagues.
The advice I will give to any of
my colleague in the federation is that, as a leader, you are called to lead a
group of nurses, been a leader you are expected to live by example.
Whatsoever you want your nurses
to be , you are expected to be practice it irrespective of the picture you see
in the nurses, with time you will become
worthy of emulation.
I have people who I emulate
today, though they are all retired but they are proud of me and I also look
forward to a time when I will retire and will be able to say; these are my
mentees whom I mentored. She said “I did not bring myself to this level but I
was only improving myself to be relevant in my profession”.
