The sacrifices made by nurses and midwives that go unnoticed

“So if the government entrusted us to give quality health care to the people of Uganda, we request that they make our lives easy too.”

By Naggujja Lydia

Kampala – June 25, 2022: It’s really very absurd that when health workers come out to show how disgruntled they are regarding salary discrepancies and skyrocketing prices for the commodities on the market, the leader decides to come out and intimidate the subordinates yet the IA (artificial intelligence) is a fundamental right.

In this country, a health worker who is not insured cannot afford paying for her medical bills at Nakasero hospital if he or she has been admitted for a month. We saw this during COVID-19 time when we had to just solicit money for the health workers who had been admitted to the hospitals.

Look at the health workers who spend sleepless nights attending to emergencies, midwives in labor suits, and inpatients. A normal person is supposed to sleep for 6-8 hours. Do they know the risks associated with having interrupted sleep or no sleep at all while on duty attending to patients?

The accidents got while on duty like needle pricks where you have to take PEP for a month. Most of those people can even faint upon seeing just blood.  

Let them also ponder on how much nurses and midwives have neglected their families as they extend services to the people who need their care in the hospitals. 

There are times when our children have asked us, “Mummy, daddy where are you going at this time?” And the reply to them is that “Am going to the hospital to take care of the sick”.

 You leave the child depressed. Our families have missed us so much. We have deprived them of the love they deserve from us. We have not given them or spent with them enough time. The reason being we have to be a way to spare the lives of other people even at night.

So if the government entrusted us to give quality health care to the people of Uganda, we request that they make our lives easy too. We also want to have a decent meal as they do. We also want to have our children go to better schools like theirs. 

We also want to have the ability to pay for our hospital bills in case of sickness like they do when they go to the US for better health care services. 

Intimidation is not a solution rather negotiating and solving the issue of salary discrepancies would be the best strategy. Because all health workers matter, no man is an island. 

The writer is a concerned BScN Nurse