This month we will be hearing from staff from the paediatric ward at BCH.

First from Mugarura Robert who has been a paediatric nurse for the last 8 years.

My name is Mugarura Robert. I am married with two children and I am a native of Bwindi. I have served Bwindi Community Hospital (BCH) as a paediatric nurse for the last 8 years.

I like working at BCH because it has good administration from top to bottom. The hospital has safety measures in place for the staff which means that you feel protected from occupational hazards when you are at work. This is unusual to find in other healthcare institutions.

I love working with children because they don’t usually pretend. They are honest about how they are feeling. My favourite thing about working in paediatrics is seeing premature babies survive. We used to believe that premature babies do not survive, but at BCH we have had very many premature babies survive, and I have been part of that effort. For example, Icared for a baby that weighed 0.6kg at birth.  The baby survived, which I did not believe could happen. This was in 2016 and I still see him about in Buhoma, he comes to visit me.

One challenge that I have faced whilst working at BCH is not having all the equipment that I would like to give the best care to patients, particularly premature babies. Another challenge is poverty amongst the attendants. You find that the client does not have the required finances to pay for the tests that are needed, or requests early discharge when they are still sick because they are unable to provide for themselves. A furtherchallenge is not having a specialist nurse, especially specialised in neonatal care.

I studied for my diploma of nursing at the nursing school attached to the hospital in 2019 and in the future I hope to go back to school for a degree in nursing. Out of work I enjoy playing football, and raising animals on my farm.