The Goals Include: Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger; Achieve Universal Primary Education; Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women; Reduce Child Mortality;Improve Maternal Health, Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria, Tuberculosis and other diseases;
Ensure Environmental Sustainability; Develop a Global Partnership for Development
Nurses have unlimited roles to play in the actualization of the Millennium Development Goals.
Goal 1, Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger aims to halve between 1990 and 2015 the proportion of people whose income is less than one dollar a day and the proportion of people who suffer from hunger, can be achieved with effective population control. There is no doubt that the biggest challenge facing the developing countries, Nigeria inclusive, is that of poverty and hunger, a twin-disease ravaging our land. Our country is currently facing a potential problem of over population, the consequence of which can, at the long run lead to abject poverty. When the population increases very fast, the provision of social amenities such as water, education and good health services cannot meet the needs of the people. Therefore, if poverty must be alleviated, there should be population control. This is where the nurses’ role comes into play; by incorporating the concept of family planning into the health care policy. Family planning as defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) is a way of thinking and living that is voluntarily adopted upon the basis of knowledge, attitude and responsible decision making by individuals and couples so as to promote health and welfare of family group, thus contributing effectively to the socio-economic developments of the country.” It is a truism that ‘the fewer we are, the better the quality of our lifes’. Goal 2 is to Achieve Universal Primary Education and the target is to ensure that by 2015, children every where, boys and girls alike will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling. Article (7) of the Convention on the Rights of the child states that “the child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name and the right to acquire a nationality”. The nurses can intervene by, finding out the registration level among those for whom he or she is providing services, and the reasons for non registration, taking action to promote the registration of unregistered children as soon as omission is discovered and tackling the barriers that are amenable to local remedies.
The nurses can help to Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women by playing a major role in advocacy. In her role as an advocate, the nurse may represent the client’s needs and wishes to the Government and the public by supporting the clients in exercising their rights and help to speak out for them. The nurses can also speak out for the women folk by educating the populace, especially the men to stop maltreating their wives due to the fact that they cannot give them male children. They can let the men know that they play a major role in determining the sex of their unborn child; and that all children are born equal, with no limitation to what female children could do.
Researches have shown that Sub-Saharan Africa has recorded over 180 000 under-fives mortality rate between year 1990 to 2003. This calls for a global alarm with immediate nursing intervention. Nurses can help foster a positive attitude towards immunization against common childhood killer diseases such as measles, tetanus, and poliomyelitis. Besides, nurses can give health information about the necessity for adequate diet and proper nutrition to the pregnant women and nursing mothers in order to reduce child mortality. Also, the nurse could organize free or affordable health programmes for children with the help of the Government, in conjunction with the World Bank, such was the practice in Ondo State under the Governance of Dr. Agagu, the Ex-Executive Governor.
You will agree with me that women risk death to give life (during delivery). Nurses can contribute to improving Maternal Health by ensuring that quality emergency obstetric care of a trained provider with midwifery skills is present at every delivery. They can encourage pregnant women to complete their prescribed laboratory investigations such as retroviral screening, ultrasound scan, genotype and so on, results of which can help in tackling any detected congenital anomaly. Nurses can also ensure the provision of manual vacuum aspiration for women with incomplete abortion. This will help in reducing death due to sepsis and in the long run bring about reduced Maternal mortality.
The role of nurses in combating HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and other diseases includes provision of health information on safe sex, abstinence, condom accessibility, preventive and curative measures, advocate for compassionate nursing care, access to drugs and referral services to hospitals and health facilities. The nurses can play a major role in encouraging the masses (through mass media) to maintain good environmental hygiene because dirty and weedy environment serves as breeding space for mosquitoes and vectors. The Nurses should ensure prompt treatment of malaria and other endemic diseases.
One of the major roles of the Primary Health Care Providers like nurses is to ensure proper environmental sanitation which entails all efforts geared towards making the environment safe for living. The nurse can ensure environmental sustainability by teaching her immediate community members on the importance of clean environment and various ways of water purification such as using water treatment aids or boiling. Since all drugs and medicines are regarded as potential poisons, the nurse can ensure a healthy environment by keeping all medicines away from the reach of the vulnerable groups such as the children. The nurse must ensure proper administration of medicines as well as adequate disposal of the expired ones.
Furthermore, nurses can contribute to Developing a Global Partnership for Development by cooperating with other health care regilatory bodies such as the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) to provide access to affordable drugs. The Nurse can also collaborate with professionals in other fields such as Administration, Engineering, Politics, Law, Agriculture and such like, under one umbrella and in unity to bring about unprecedented global development. With maximum cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture, the nurses can adequately Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger (Goal 1), Achieve Universal Primary Education by liasing with the Ministry of Education (Goal 2), Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women with the Ministry of Women Affairs. They can Reduce Child Mortality, Improve Maternal Health and Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria, Tuberculosis and other diseases with adequate collaboration with the Ministry of Health [Goals 4,5 and 6], and Ensure Environmental Sustainability in conjunction with the Ministry of Works, Land and Housing (Goal 7). With undiluted cooperation with other professional organizations such as UNESCO, nurses can help to develop a Global Partnership for Development (Goal 8). It is also a truism that ‘united we stand, divided we fall’. In conclusion, I am sure that you will agree with me that nurses have vital roles to play in the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals by virtue of their position in the health care delivery. If all these measures are put into practice by the nurses, the MDGs targets will be achieved much earlier before the targeted year, that is, year 2015.
Ifeoluwa Oluyemi Babalola, star winner of the 2009 Nigerian Student Nurses Essay Competition is a Student of the School of Nursing Akure, Ondo State 
