Name of health worker: Zawedde Florence
Occupation: Nurse
Masaka Regional Referral Hospital
A health worker’s experience dealing with staffing challenges in the surgical ward
I have been working in the surgical ward since March 2020. It has a capacity of 10 beds and our patients are mainly admitted with septic ulcers due to conditions like diabetes, immune suppression and others are admitted with fresh wounds due to surgery and accidents.
This is a unit with few staff; two nursing officers, two registered nurses, one enrolled nurse, one nursing assistant and we cover the three shifts; day, evening and night. Staffing is still a challenge. This is heavily felt when performing procedures that need to be performed by 2 nurses.
There are inadequate supplies like gloves, instruments and we have had to plead with the store manager to increase the supply. And, when our plea fell on deaf ears, we carried out dressings twice a week to save dressing material. And, due to inadequate space, it gets hectic to perform nursing care on the floor for the patients admitted there. To address this challenge of space, we discharge those patients that are in fair condition with dressings so that they can be attended to from nearby health facilities.