By: Alinyinkira Ritah
(A BSN NURSE, ANO – Bugiri General Hospital)
After completing my Advanced Secondary Level, I was offered a Nursing Course. I remember my cousin telling me that he was glad my points didn’t take me for medicine, I wondered and asked him why he said that and I vividly remember him telling me that being a nurse would suit me better since I enjoyed helping and taking care of others.
Though he was right about it, I didn’t take it seriously until I joined the Nursing school, and started practising in the hospital environment and indeed appreciated his statement but I also realized that having the love to serve, and having the required knowledge was not all I needed to offer nursing care, I discovered that availability of adequate resources coupled with adequate staffing was vital in providing proper patients’ care.
By the grace of God, I have served and worked in a government-aided health facility for eleven years now. This has truly been a journey of service, sacrifice, learning, joy and happiness but also sorrow. Putting aside a few health workers working in hospitals of excellence and those working in well-equipped and stocked facilities, many of us working in most government facilities face a lot of challenges during the process of offering care to our patients, that’s to say the frequent stock out of drugs and sundries not forgetting burnouts caused by work stress and staff shortages.
Imagine the pain and stress we experience when we lose a patient knowing clearly that we would have saved their life if only a particular drug or equipment was in place, the pain of sending an attendant or patient to buy a particular drug or carry out a test currently not available at the facility fully aware that they are even failing to afford a meal while in hospital, this reminds me of a time a mother to a seven-month-old baby reported not being able to calm the baby that was crying uncontrollably and on assessment, I realized that the baby was angry due to the fact that the mother couldn’t produce enough breast milk since she hadn’t eaten for one and half days, this was so sad and yet as a nurse I had to forge a way of helping out this mother and baby, it’s my duty to care for my patients wholly and holistically but am I being fully supported to do so? Facing such dilemmas almost on a daily basis with literally little to do or change grossly affects our mental health as nurses.
Am not a politician and neither am I political but was so interested by one of the proposed amendments by the civil society organizations, the proposal to have two members of parliament per district, I imagined the funds that could be saved from this and also assumed how much our government hospitals and health facilities could change for the better if these funds were channeled to improve, recruit, facilitate and stock these facilities through the right people and processes. This was only a nurse’s imagination but could be food for thought for those with the power and authority to make changes.
To my dear patients and caretakers.
Do not call me a thief when I send you to go buy that drug that is unavailable or out of stock, am not doing it out of greed, am doing so because I need to treat you and see you get well despite the challenges in our facilities, believe me I feel your pain and we are in this together, please support me to care for you better.
Am not a liar when I tell you that am always saddened every time I lose a patient, I don’t shade tears openly because it’s my duty to comfort and support you through grief, I have to act strong for you, I have to provide a shoulder for you to lean on but believe me I shade tears behind closed doors because am human, I also need that tap on the back and the assurance that you truly understand me and that all will be well.
Do not tag me emotionless because I always keep a smiling face on despite working in an environment surrounded by people mostly in pain and discomfort. I do this because I have to be a sign of hope where hope is lost, I have to be that ray of light in that patient’s darkness, trust me I do this to show you that am approachable and determined to do my best to see you get well.
To those in power and with authority
We are grateful for that already done, what is available and that being provided, we humbly request for more consideration, please prioritize health, equip our government facilities with adequate drugs, sundries, equipment and human resource.
Support me to offer my service with ease, comfort, love and compassion, save a nurse from mental stress and depression, we can do better and together, we can improve health care services.
This is a Nurse’s plea.
To love and serve
For God and My Country.
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