ONYINYECHUKWA MARYJANE IGBOJINNA
25 years | Pretoria, South Africa

For nursing it wasn’t really something we were looking at when we were choosing my University degree. Nursing was not even in the cards. We are a really spiritual family, so when we say there is something to do in the future, we look into it. We tried nursing for one year. And I kind of liked nursing. So, I decided I would continue with the rest of the degree. As I also knew that nursing would be a good fit in terms of job security and all that. But the more I got into nursing for the next two years, up until now I saw more what it can do for people and how we impact people’s life going forward. When I entered into midwifery, it was in March or April this year, I did not know what I was going to expect but I knew it was about dealing with pregnant women and babies. And I didn’t mind dealing with that because looking at babies and making them come into the world felt like a really fun thing to do. But once I saw the first delivery I was simply amazed! I thought ‘So this is how it happens’. To me it was like a miracle that happens every day. It is amazing to see how a baby can come into the world! I just think this whole process is a miracle by itself. I think we can use biology and all of that to explain it but the feeling you get in that moment is something you cannot explain’.
When our lecturer told us more about maternal health I really thought something has to be done for women not dying during pregnancy and delivery, as this is something that happens so naturally to most women. They should not be dying because of that and they should be more empowered by providing them information, so when they go to the clinics they are more aware of some of the risks and some of the benefits and what they themselves need to do. I also saw in the hospital that some of the things done in the hospital they were not in line with the country guidelines.
I knew I wanted to be the person to provide this high standard of care to the patient. I know what I am doing now it may affect them in the future, when they have another baby. I knew I wanted to become a midwife and get my advanced midwifery batch.
I applied to nursing and law. Two very different things. We were looking at it and thought will I get into both or one. And I got into both. I chose nursing because I wanted to see where it goes. I also did some research on law and the graduate employment rate was not good and very competitive. So that’s why I went for nursing.

In South Africa it is a dual study. In the first and second year we do MedSurge MedSearch related things in the emergency departments, the surgical and medical wards. In the third and fourth year we still go to the emergency wards, but we spend much more in midwifery – a total of 180 hours in the labor ward, and 176 hours for antenatal and postnatal care.
For the fourth year its mainly labor and neonatal ICU.
When I graduate I have a bachelor or nursing science degree with honors, called a professional nurse. We can work in the general nursing and the midwifery ward.
We are around 40 students in our academic year; initially we were more than 50 students. But some people transferred to medicine, others did not want to continue or went on a break.
I really like the emerging interests coming out of nursing and how broad it actually is. I really enjoy the potential to go into industries you wouldn’t expect nurses could go into. For example the forensic nursing, or the crime space where you can help victims of assault to recover. Also the potential you can start your own practice – I really enjoy the options I have in the future.
This year there was this one subject, pharmacology. There was a lot of content. But we have had this one lecturer, who asked us a lot of questions. It was a really good preparation for the semester test. And also midwifery. It is a lot of work – but for me it just made sense in my mind. There are some concepts I had to sit down and really understand it. But it just makes sense and this is why I enjoy being in the midwifery class.

The transport to our clinical placements such as old people’s homes, or going to factories for occupational health is a big challenge. Many in my class don’t have driver’s license and they do not have a car. We do not need to pay for the transport, the school provides us with taxis and normal cars but we need drivers. So those with a license drive their own car and not those they do not feel comfortable with.
I thought how can I better prepare for it so I thought I have to budget better and put some money aside so I can take an Uber or Bolt to get to where I have been placed next year.

Earlier, clinical placement was not really an issue. We have a hospital in walking distance to the campus, but they started to restrict the numbers of students for all disciplines and degrees, but the other is about 30 minutes by driving. While there is a direct bus which is nice, it leaves really early in the morning and not every student is ready to do this. For me I focus on completing my hours. You can email the teacher lecturer and get a special permission so you can do it during public holidays or weekends – I sacrifice my time now so I have more time to prepare for my exams later. So, I have one month of free time towards the end of my academic year. We are also doing night shifts – so I am spending my time and money to go there early, but now I have plenty of time at my hands to prepare for exams and all other things.
They randomly allocate us, unless you have issues and they give you special placements. So, they tell us, this day you are here and next day here. Normally we have 12 hour shifts, and sometimes 8 hours. They come and check on you The lecturers check on you while at clinicals to apply what we learnt into the practice and to make sure we are there.
; . In the fourth year, we go to lectures once a week and have two compulsory shift days.
We come to the hospital and they know we are coming and we introduce ourselves as students. We get allocated to rooms and they know we are there to learn skills.
Sometimes the sister in charge, the charge nurse sits us students down and asks us what skills do we need. I have seen that once or twice.
Normally they show you around the woard, show you the routine of the day and tell you that this is what you do. When you get the opportunity to perform the skill you tell the sister that you have done it. At the end of the day they sign the skills you have done. At the end of the day we manage to meet all the skills – we need to reach a certain number.
We have to get 15 deliveries in our third and fourth year. They cut down the number of deliveries.
What I noticed that when you are on a day shift there are also other students from different institutions looking for deliveries and then it gets competitive. I remember I was on a day shift in one of the hospitals very far away; and there were other students who snatched them away.
On night shifts you get more opportunity to help the woman to deliver the baby.
We also had an incident where we had to guide the paramedic student as he did not know what to do during the delivery. A student who has done five, guides another students who did three. However, the students are more gentle than the actual nursing staff, so we do not really hurt the woman. But for some skills it is not as efficient in teaching us.
We get the quota, but I would not say I know how to do it for some skills.
Nurses have to do other things and there are some nurses they have nothing to do but they still don’t guide us. There are some really good nurses who really teach you how to do it. She even told me: do this on that patient and tell me how it went.
You can tell who is there for the money and who is passionate about the patient and helping us future nurses.
For the nursing modules there is a lecture for each and all are taught hybrid. As we are now out of the covid time we do classes in person, but the University promotes a hybrid model. When it comes to our lecturers in person they give us pre-exercises we have to do and then we answer them in class, we have the lectures and then they give us follow-up exercises. It really depends – I am also engaging myself elsewhere. I end up not doing the pre-exercises but I do them in class. As I am also doing other things the evenings before such as coming back from clinicals.

Some of the sessions are really long which can hinder our learning and concentration. For example midwifery theory or research theory after 1.5 hours our mind are already somewhere else. At least we have some lecturers allowing us to have a break in between.
Most lecturers are well – but we have to use our text books to understand what we do.
Integrated healthcare leadership (IHL) is not the most effective in terms of teaching and material. I did not really understand why we were doing it. Thye go over topics such as mentorship and conflict resolution, and also the hierarchies and structure of nurses and midwives etc.. But,I felt I learned more about it while in student leadership than in the actual class. We were questioning that module a lot. Only in the third year I started to understand why it was in first and second year but the information did not help us in the first two years of the degree.. The lecturer however was not listening to us; she uploaded the material too late, not her slides but group assignments and so on.

If the lecturers puts as much effort into the material and slides, as well as into teaching it shows it is effective. It has an impact on the students motivation and engagement in the class and outside of class. But for those not putting any efforts, and even when we try to put effort we don’t even know if we put the right focus. But most of the modules we had good experiences with the lecturers except the integrated healthcare leadership in second year

I enjoy the skills labs a lot. It gets me to do practical things before going to the hospital. For midwifery it was a challenge. As when we got placed we all got places in very different departments at the hospital. We had only learned antenatal care, and some were put into the labour ward. At the time we did not know anything about labour and some were shocked.
We have large skills labs and we were all 41 students. Normally we are divided into two to three groups with a lecturer each and we then rotate. We are not allowed to go to the skills lab on our own – due to the equipment, which is expensive.

We can buy the textbooks, borrow from the library or we try to find an online version of the book. Most of the books from the library we can only use within the library and not borrow them. Often we buy second hand books from the older students – but its then a matter of time to get them at the right time.
We also use digital resources such as clinical key; as well as the maternity guideline book from South Africa; and for postnatal we use the guidelines from WHO. We also got introduced to Osmosis which was helpful for some modules. It is still new to us and they have a trial version. They told us that our lecturer can see our performance; but I am not sure if the lecturers actually uses this function yet.
The first semester is divided into two quarters (January to March and April to June) and the second semester from July onwards etc.
We have one exam for each semester; if you do not do well you get the opportunity to the supplementary exam. The exam covers the topics of the whole semester.


I was engaged in Faculty Houses for all students under the Health Sciences and the student leadership presenting my degree. I was the representative on behalf of all students of the Nursing degree. I am representing them in all issues and also organized social events. For the Faculty House we organized many events including a mental health day. I oversee all the degree houses in my Faculty House.
Also, I was mentoring students in the year below us as well as was participating in the choir.

You pay for the University but it all depends on your background in terms of your finances. A total of 25% are covered by the government; everything is covered as they come from lower income families. Most families take a loan at my University, and they pay back their family once they graduated and have a job. Its only very few parents who are paying and where the child does not have a loan. Some students are also on a bursaries – if you are doing a degree that is really needed in the industry you will get a bursarya. Also, there are scholarships but they are quite difficult to get and some apply for the national skills fund bursary, which also applies for registered nurses.

After 4 years we have to work for 1 year for the community service in a government hospital. After one year we can go anywhere else.. In 2023, they wanted the new graduate nurses to do the test, but they stopped it. I think they realized the test was a bad idea especially with the new changes we have.

The nurses and midwives – some of them are not really attentive on how to teach the student. If someone is crying of pain the midwife or nurse would not go, but the students go immediately. We are nicer as students when we are attending women in this state. When they go they may be shouting at the patients. Also, they do not attend the women as they should, e.g. move into this position, because then birthing is much easier. They practice as they learned many years ago.
I think they are the way they are because of pressure and stress. We as young students are more opportunistic and we decide to either be better or meaner.
I think most registered nurses are the primary bread winners of their families. So, people come to them with different things. It is a lot of psychological issues. But if someone constantly nags and asks for assistance, I think there are a lot of issues on why you are becoming mean. Sometimes it is personality, but sometimes they are mean to certain people and to others they are nice. It says a lot about them.

If I graduate now I am a midwife and can also do medsurge nurses. If I want to specialize I can get an advanced midwifery diploma, which takes one year.

Currently they are changing everything. With the new curriculum change they also change the post-grad diplomas for specialization. At the moment they are getting the changes approved. They need the council representatives to approve the changes.

When I graduate in 2024 I graduate with a Bachelor of Nursing Science with honours and have a midwifery batch. If I want to specialize in midwifery I would have a diploma and I would be an advanced midwife.

I want to be financially stable. I want to finish my degree and specialize and maybe study more to get into research. I have a public speaking background and would love to do something on that. I already did a voice over training and am certified. I finished the voice over this year and then I actively started seeking it after my holidays. Since I had a public speaking background already it was much easier to obtain.
I want to use public speaking, educate people on nursing and opening up people’s mind about what nursing is. I want to use my voice and look forward to a brighter future.
In ten years I definitely will be in a better place financially and spiritually for my family as well; and be a known voice over artist, specifically for animation. I love animation. As such I want to be a presenter and be active in the nursing imagery space.

Interview by Leah F. Bohle, 08 December 2023

Photo by Onyinyechukwu Maryjane Igbojinna