1. Our attention has been drawn to a circulation in the media by one, Mr. Raphael Onyekachukwu purportedly, of Sahara Reporters with the heading: “Students, Staff Accuse Anambra Nursing College Provost of High-Handed Administration, Extortion, Arbitrary Expulsion”. In that piece, the author condemned the decision of the school authorities in expelling a student nurse who engaged in examination malpractice as “arbitrary” (unjustified).
2. We wish to state that a breach of our examination ethics was noticed, the College Disciplinary Committee sat extensively before whom the then alleged offenders appeared. The Board of Governors of the College reviewed the report of the Disciplinary Committee and ratified the recommendations made therein. That is a sound and fair procedure to our minds. Indeed, one actually wonders when examination malpractice ceases to be an offence in our country, worse when the students are being trained to take care of human life.
3. We strongly stand by our diligent and hardworking College Provost, Mrs. Theresa Aniedu Obiodinukwe. We are satisfied, and highly commend the manner of her discharging her duties of maintaining standards and upholding the Nursing Training Regulatory and College policies. It beats our imagination how maintaining standards that have future bearing on human life will be misconstrued as high-handedness? Whoever wants his mother or child to be cared for, by a half-baked nurse!
4. No student or staff has ever brought a report of having been asked to pay any money to the Provost, personally. We are very interested if any person, who has any proof that she has taken money personally from them for the discharge of her official duties, would present them to us for investigations and appropriate actions. Until now, we have not seen any, and are still open to get one if there is. We do know that students pay tuition and other fees into the school account which procedure was created to block any avenue for extortion.
5. We deny any responsibility in the unavailability of accommodation for our students who went on Psychiatric Experience in Enugu. Each student paid N80,000 from where we paid to the host hospital per capita and some bulk sum as an institution. The balance is usually used for transportation logistics which we diligently organized. However, in some years, the Facility in Enugu offers accommodation, if available and when they cannot, students are informed prior to their departure to make personal arrangements. This year, the Facility duly informed us earlier of unavailability of accommodation for our students and the College clearly passed the information to our students so that they can make alternative arrangements. Hospital experiences in Nursing Training is like Industrial Training in other Tertiary Institutions. We do not know of any institution who has the responsibility to provide accommodation for students on IT? It has never been our responsibility!
6. Our findings showed that it was a few students whose personal plans to secure private accommodations failed that were raising alarm, in frustration, and never reached out to our College Administration to see if they could render any help. It is really sad.
7. We are determined not to relent in offering robust and quality training to our student nurses. Our resolve is founded on the fact that the work of a nurse has direct impact on the life of another human being. Cutting corners to look nice will be making ourselves accessories after the fact of potential future medical malpractice to which we cannot, in good conscience, bring ourselves to be.
8. We remain deeply convinced that it is when each person does the right thing in his or her area in life that our Country will be better for all of us.

Signed:

Management