Name of health worker: Ndyanabo Evan
Occupation: Nurse
Masaka Regional Referral Hospital
My experience managing COVID-19 patients or suspects has been quite a journey. I have worked in the quarantine centre of Masaka District for 2 months, in May and June 2020. In this period, sometimes I would fear visiting my family to avoid spreading the virus to my children.
While at the quarantine centre and managing these COVID-19 suspects, I observed that any suspected cases that were brought in were worried with a lot of anxiety and fear for the deadly disease. They were depressed all the time, some would escape and others would fear to go back to their communities. Some of them would refuse to eat totally for about 3 days, complaining that their COVID-19 results were delayed. One of the suspected cases of COVID-19 escaped from the quarantine centre and the young children who came with their parents kept loitering around the compound, which put them at the risk of getting infected with the virus.
I recommend that numerous COVID-19 testing centres are established in the country to avoid the delay of results and consider the option of self-quarantining of people from their homes. Additionally, all referral hospitals around the country should start offering testing services for the virus, and not only depend on sending samples to COVID-19 centres.
As a nurse amidst all this, I continued to support the suspects psychologically, emotionally and spiritually as they waited on their COVID-19 results. Fortunately for most of them, their results came back negative and this made them very happy.