Nurses on night duty at the Nankudu District Hospital in Kavango West region are forced to use cellphone flashlights in the hospital's corridors at night. They say taking a corpse to the mortuary at night has become a nightmare for them, as there are no light bulbs in the corridors.
This was revealed in a speech read by registered nurse Likuranu Emmersiana on behalf of her colleagues during the celebration of International Nurses' Day at the same hospital last Friday.
They indicated that the hospital is also faced with other challenges such as a lack of equipment, saying nurses run from one department to the other to borrow hospital equipment in order to render quality services to patients.
Nurses also alleged they have to donate money in order to buy batteries for fetal dopplers, Haemoglobin and Haemoglucose test machines.
"We are still digging deep in our pockets to buy something white and something navy to make it nurses' uniforms. The last time we received nurses' uniforms was in 2015," they added.
At a regional level, the nurses indicated that the region still depends on the Rundu Intermediate Hospital in Kavango East for most of the advanced patient care services, as the region does not have a regional hospital.
"Kavango West region was declared a standalone region, and this initiative was supposed to come with so much icing on the cake. As Kavango West became a region, we were supposed to automatically get a regional hospital," they stated.
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In the absence of a regional hospital, the nurses indicated the Nankudu District Hospital was supposed to be treated as such. However, it is rocked with its own challenges, such as only having one senior registered nurse, despite serving the whole region.
The staff thus called for each department to have one if not two, senior registered nurses. The nurses also pointed out the need for a customer care nurse and an infection control nurse.
They added that they are in need of capacity-building training to enhance their knowledge, and for more enrolled nurses to be sent to educational institutions in order to upgrade and become registered nurses.
Nurses indicated that there are enrolled nurses amongst them who have served for more than 10 years and have not been accorded the opportunity to upgrade. The region's director for health and social services, Fransiska Hamutenya indicated that the directorate will do its best to attend to the issues raised that are within its mandate and take up the rest with the head office.
"I should inform you that with the upgrading of enrolled nurses; we have already started. This year alone, we have sent about 15 enrolled nurses only," Hamutenya said. "As much as we want to send everybody, we cannot do so unless we close the wards, we close all the facilities, but step-by-step, we'll get there," she added.
* Nambara Stefanus is an Information Officer in the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT) based at Nkurenkuru in Kavango West
