Madonna University, Elele Campus, Rivers State, has expelled a final-year nursing student and suspended 14 other 500-level students over a viral TikTok video.
The student who was expelled was identified simply as Mercy.
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The video showed a group of nursing students dancing in different parts of the university, including a hospital waiting area, staircase, and bus.
Mercy appeared in the opening seconds of the video, dancing in a hospital hallway. She reportedly received her expulsion letter during the week.
The video was part of a social media trend known as the “Gen Z nurses” challenge, in which healthcare workers dance in clinical settings.
It included a Pidgin English caption that read, “No fall sick, o, na Gen Z full hospital now.”
The TikTok account used to post the video was later made private. Direct messages sent to the account could not be delivered.
The video was reportedly uploaded in August before being picked up by social media blogs early last month.
A 15-second version posted by Yabaleftonline on September 1 had recorded more than 1.7 million views on X by Saturday.
The video was filmed on the university’s Elele campus.
A medical influencer and TikTok content creator, Nurse Girma (@nurse_girma), later drew attention to the video and appealed to the university to reconsider the punishment.
In a video posted on Friday, Girma said the university senate had taken disciplinary action against the students.
“The information reaching us from last night and this morning is that the owner of the account has been expelled and every other person involved has been served suspension,” he said.
Girma said the video had attracted negative attention and led some healthcare professionals to call for stricter rules around the conduct of student nurses.
He said he initially believed the students in the video were registered nurses but later deleted some of his comments after learning that they were still undergraduates.
“I know what has happened has happened, but I want to appeal to the school to temper justice with mercy; when it came to me that she is a 500-level student, it really melted my heart,” he said.
The university’s decision has sparked different reactions on social media, with some users supporting the disciplinary action and others calling for the students to be given another chance.
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