As this is my first time blogging, I seriously did not know what to blog about or how to go about it. I was so nervous a few days ago when I realized that I had only a few days left until I was to submit my first blog. One night as I was trying to catch some sleep, my phone vibrated. I woke up to find that I had a notification from my Twitter account. It was my friend Aaziel, who had mentioned me in one of his tweets. I opened the notification and read the tweet. He had posted a picture of a stubbed man with a caption “Nurses be like ‘Come back after lunch if it still hurts!’ ”
Though I laughed so hard because I found it funny, later on I was like “No! This is not right”. I had mixed feelings about that tweet really. I wanted to make a very rude comment then I told myself it was not necessary. I told him that was not true; I said I believe no nurse or Doctor would leave for lunch without attending to such a patient just for the sake of just being rude or mean. This conversation went on for minutes and it was really interesting. I was saddened that people pass judgment on medical and nursing personnel working in public hospital as negligent, heartless and mean. What could make these professionals become so rude, uncaring and irresponsible when they are in a profession that is so noble and respected?
You may be surprised why that tweet made me sad. Well, I have worked as a clinical officer in several public hospitals for the past six years and I have had my own experience in the hospital as both a patient and clinician. From what I have come to know and see I somehow understand why health workers become so rude especially in public hospitals. This problem of health workers being rude to patient is widespread; there is need to address the underlying causes of this problem. Only then we can tackle the problem effectively. It saddens me to know the fact that people do not understand the current situation regarding human resources for health and all they see are the consequences this shortage has on health service delivery.
The health system in Malawi is facing a critical shortage of human resources. You may be surprised that the current Doctor/population and nurse/population is at 1:50000 and 1:4000 respectively (according to the Malawi Demographic Survey 2010 and an article written by the Executive Director of National Organization of Nurses and Midwives of Malawi in 2012, respectively). This is below the World Health Organization standard for developing countries which is Doctor/population 1:5000 and nurse/population is 1:1000.
I know the government is putting forth efforts to address shortages and performance of human health resources, but the health system in Malawi continues to face critical shortage of staff, hence no effective health delivery. Most health personnel choose to move out of the public sector because they are underpaid and public hospitals do not have enough resources to enable them to practice what they were trained to do in college. Due to this shortage, health personnel in public hospitals are overworked. This leads to stress among them hence results in wrong actions like being rude, mean and negligent. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying these actions are right. I know patients expect respect and better communication and this is medicine’s mandate that patients have rights. However, I believe addressing the underlying causes, of which one of them is shortage of staff, can help to avoid such wrong actions taken by health personnel.
I know for sure most of these health personnel are very conscious of the right and appropriate actions patients require but may not do so because they are overworked, tired, frustrated, angry and powerless. There are some health facilities that have only one nurse and medical assistant and they are expected to serve a population of over 10,000. These two take shifts or work together for 24 hrs a day all year through just to make sure services are delivered all times. They do not have time to attend to other personal or family issues, and as a result they are very exhausted and frustrated. These are the obstacles that lead to inappropriate actions and this has an impact on health care delivery.
Anyway, here is what I feel; I feel like some components in the Malawi health system such as human resources for health has little attention. I feel the government does not prioritize human resources for health. We all know the importance of the role that health workers has in the implementation of health care delivery. The government should consider increasing the intake in both nursing and medical colleges and find means to support and sustain these trainings. They say money is not a motivation but trust me, money will always make people stay. The government should reconsider what it pays these health workers. Health workers should be viewed as an investment with a potential return. Let us not make people who joined a profession that was meant to do good things for other human beings become so rude and uncaring by frustrating them.