SUPPORTING A PATIENT WITHOUT AN ATTENDANT AMIDST A CHAOTIC ENVIRONMENT

We are seated in our weekly meeting as always listening to challenges encountered during the week and making plans of how to improve our service delivery more so at a time as this when wards in Mulago hospital are being moved for renovations to take place. Norah one of the nurses gives a detailed report about a young woman; Prossy aged 21 years. Prossy narrates that at the age of two, she got burned in the head by the fire and the wounds were nursed and she got better. She went to school and studied up to primary two, but dropped out due to lack of funds to meet scholastic materials as well as lack of encouragement from her illiterate peasant parents.

At the age of 17 years, Prossy started plaiting her hair to look beautiful and get ready for marriage. Before long, she was married (not sure if it was formal or customary marriage). She conceived and successfully gave birth; however, she started feeling burning sensations on the head as well as development of painful blisters. She sought treatment and luckily she improved a bit. Unfortunate, not too long, the pains were back and smelly this time, the husband abandoned her and the baby. Under these circumstances, Prossy had to go back to her parents with hope to be supported. Things instead became harder that she made a decision to sell off her millet produce to seek medical care at an advanced health facility. She travelled to the city all by herself, was admitted in Mulago hospital. Caring Hands team was called in to help, there, we found Prossy lying in her hospital bed and gave us a smile as we introduced ourselves. We started her on nutritious meals to get her body strong for surgery as she underwent several investigations.

After a while, she was ready for an operation. The surgery was done and the dead tissues were removed. The job was done so well that she wouldn’t develop big scars. Prossy was recuperating so well until one morning when she woke up and got a heart arrest and was immediately transferred to the Intensive Care Unit. She now needed more attention than before; she was fixed onto oxygen supply and a Nasogastic tube for feeding and many emergency medications to bring her out of comatose. She had no relatives close by as her family lives in Bushenyi, Buhweza Western Uganda which is over 350Km from Kampala. Flipping through her file, we found a cell phone number of her sister-in-law (her brother’s wife) who got us in touch with Prossy’s maternal uncle. The days without an attendant were tough under a limited resource environment and limited in every sense of the word. The uncle came and attended to her for a couple of days, but after that he wanted to live to go back to take care of his businesses. One wonders who in their right mind would opt attending to a business to an unconscious patient. The team literary held him back and gave a condition to let him go only if he got someone to attend to his niece. Only one who has been in public hospitals here understands the situation during holidays.

Prossy’s uncle convinced the mother to travel to Mulago to attend to her daughter. The biggest scare to Prossy’s mother was traveling to a big city. We had to come up with a good plan (will spare you the nity gritty) so the woman wouldn’t get lost especially that she had no cell phone number to keep in touch with her. Thankfully, she made it on Thursday afternoon before Good Friday. One wonders the average hours it takes us to help a patient. Sometimes it takes us many hours while other times it takes us a few hours especially if a patient has an attendant. A health care system where family members are entirely responsible for nursing their patients is quite a complex one. We looked forward to seeing Prosy on Tuesday after the Easter weekend. Our nurse has been checking on the patients during the holiday. Thanks to you Norah!!!! God bless you. It’s one thing to have the money and another to have someone to do the job right and with passion. “The harvest is huge, but the laborers are few” For God and My Country!