At their arrival, three nurses were involved in idle chat at the reception centre, and took more than 10 minutes to attend to them. Moyo’s husband had to complain loudly to jog one of them into action, while the other two stared at the couple indifferently.
Moyo, in excruciating pain, begged to be attended to speedily but for a further 10 minutes all the nurses disappeared. When the most junior nurse returned, she ordered Moyo into a treatment room where she finally prescribed medication, without carrying out basic procedures like examining the injury or taking the temperature. When the husband demanded to see the Sister-in-Charge in order to lodge a formal complaint, he was rudely told that she was not around.
This scene is common at most public health centres where patients routinely complain of rough treatment by medical staff. Disgruntled residents across the capital city have castigated the way nurses at polyclinics handle patients seeking healthcare services.
The City of Harare manages 12 polyclinics that also double as maternity and infectious diseases hospitals. Tinotenda Sakuchara from Kuwadzana 4 in Harare, while acknowledging that access to drugs and staff numbers at the health centres had improved notably since 2009, said patients from low-income communities had to contend with rude and unprofessional nursing personnel.
“Today the main problem is about nurses who lack public relations. They embarrass patients in public. They are so arrogant. Nurses are supposed to feel for patients, but that is not the case,” he said.
Nomatter Zimuto of Mbare said she got the impression that the nurses were perennially on industrial action whenever she visited a clinic.
“When you visit the clinic you spend almost the whole day in a queue waiting to be served while the nurses take their time to attend to patients,” she said.
Zimuto recounted an ordeal she suffered when she went into labour at Edith Opperman Maternity in Mbare, where she was referred from one nurse to another, instead of being attended to immediately.
She complained that the nurses took a long time to give her a bed, adding that she almost delivered on a waiting room bench. One nurse who spoke on condition of anonymity admitted that her colleagues tended to treat patients arrogantly, but blamed that on poor working conditions.
“Conditions of service are still poor. Nurses at public clinics get poor salaries and are overworked. This tends to drive down their morale and has a negative effect on their temper. Besides, they are overwhelmed as the clinics suffer high traffic of patients,” she said.
Other patients and residents complained that nurses were extorting money from patients to get preferential treatment, while they were being made to pay for drugs that they should get for free.
But not all nurses are bad, according to Joshua Mupasiri, a Waterfalls resident. “It is not fair to paint all nurses with the same brush, as some really try their best to care for patients,” he said. “Nurses are also human and they make mistakes and also come from various backgrounds that may determine their behaviour. But as professionals they should conduct themselves like public figures with good public relations skills,” he added.
Harare City Council’s Education, Health, Housing and Community Service and Licensing Committee Chairperson, Charles Nyatsuro, blasted nurses for the ill-treatment of patients and promised to take up the matter with the Director of Health. “Anyone found wanting shall be brought to book,” said Nyatsuro, who urged nurses to be ethical and compassionate.
Between 2000 and 2009, an economic crisis marked by hyperinflation forced thousands of trained medical staff to look for greener pastures beyond Zimbabwe’s borders.
Post published in: Health