What came first: the egg or the chicken? If you have had this argument before, then you know how heated this topic can get. With certain people involved, you’d have to have the blessings of your ancestors to avoid a fight. Naturally, being the deep thinker that I am, I realised how vague this question is. For one mere flaw that the egg does not have an umbilical cord. An answer to this question can be found by instead asking, ‘what came first; the woman or the baby?’ In that case the answer is obviously the woman. That’s where you are wrong. It was the midwife!!
Nurses, midwives inclusive, are arguably the most important professionals on this planet. Show me any rich and successful man and I will google the nurse that cut his umbilical cord. Such is the weight of their importance that they are almost singlehandedly responsible for the safe introduction of new life into this world. They are also tasked with the equally not-so-simple task of guarding it in times of sickness and old age. But what happens when, for some, it becomes a burden? Let’s talk about rude nurses for the next five minutes.
Rude or unprofessional behaviour in health centres ranges from malicious ploys to mere negligence and arrogance. This can cause tense work environments, wrangles between staff, absenteeism and low productivity. However, from the perspective of one seeking health services, the greatest effect is on the patient.
Many studies have shown a strong correlation between unprofessional or rude behaviour of healthcare professionals and patient mortality. This is in part due to the reduced collaboration between the staff that greatly increases the risk of making fatal errors. These studies were conducted in controlled environments. The more error-inducing real environment indeed propagates a higher risk of error. Besides the aspect of failed collaboration, many times it comes down to errors made by individuals as a result of bad attitude.
With special reference to an existent portion of nurses in Uganda, this bad-attitude crisis is more often than not the deciding factor in cases gone wrong. One may merely neglect their duty because it is inconvenient in the moment. One may also administer intravenous dosage halfway then stroll off to get in a swipe-through of their socials. If that’s a time-sensitive drug, an infant could guess the outcome. The most common form in which this behaviour manifests is an outright lack of time to attend to patients’ needs, time which may or may not be diverted to story telling and news mongering. Needless to say this is an everyday thing to witness if you are Ugandan, in which case you have to swallow your ego before you dare present your meagre offer to pay meagre money for small small sickness. When it comes to asking for help, advice or answers, sometimes you will question how disrespectful you have become of late to present others with your burden of ignorance. When this happens in midwifery especially in rural areas, the quality of service received is greatly compromised. Check out these reports documenting how many women choose to only access antenatal services during delivery or prefer traditional midwives even if their services are illegal.
The stockpile of literature being written to try and address this issue usually ends up a substitute for toilet tissue. If it’s on the internet well it’s just another issue. The responsiveness is excruciatingly sluggish. There is a gaping hole in the suit of accountability that the beauraucrats in charge often wear. Repercussions to those who commit fatal errors in this way should surely be a thing. Friends and family to the deceased seldom bring the perpetrators to justice on the account of the difficulty in battling a case of professionalism in court and the lack of money.
However significantly technology will improve patient safety, a long way still needs to be trodden in regards to the humanity part of it. If patient safety is really of priority, how about a look into the ethics and professionalism of our beloved nurses. No matter how high up the hierarchy, negligence, rudeness and fatal blunders should surely be faulted.
What makes one write with such urgency?
My grandmother should surely have had more to say on this issue. Only God knows what she has to say. No one is responsible for her passing on, as she was battling numerous underlying conditions including hypertension, C.O.P.D and electrolyte imbalance. However in honour of her memory, a call to a few of the circumstances preceding her untimely death is befitting.
At the genesis of this rigorous treatment schedule, she blossomed under the care of the two private hospitals she was admitted to, namely International Hospital Kampala and St. Francis Hospital, both private. With her health unsteady, she at least afforded a smile. It surely felt like a supportive family system for the old lady. The regular check ups, service with a smile, engaging conversations and genuine full-time concern should have been the perfect outro to an 82 year legacy-setting storyline. However, when at last she was admitted to Mulago Hospital, the condition still deteriorating, the deficiencies in the public healthcare sector were made clear to see. The opposite was true as the caregivers complained of lack of concern, less check ups, poor time keeping and bad attitude when asked for help. As you would imagine, the final blow came in the form of an oversight in the administration of intravenous medication. But it is a story written in the stars.
In a nutshell, more efforts should be geared towards strengthening the ethics of the professional healthcare operators. A customer review of the quality of the service received would go a long way in detoxifying a toxic patient handling environment especially in public health centres. The government should revamp the health sector with an increased share of the national budget that would also cater for raising salaries of such important professionals, working in a high risk environment and often with the power to wield life and death.
All in all, the hen came first because if the egg came first and hatched, it wouldn’t have a partner to procreate with. It wouldn’t even hatch in the first place. Conversation closed. No wait🤔……
Leave a Reply to kansiimelorettaCancel reply