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Passion and care to patients keep me going - trauma nurse

Thursday September 10 2020
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Nambayisa Shadrack, a critical nurse at King Faisal Hospital. Photo | Cyril Ndegeya

By ELIZABETH MUTESI

Shadrack Nambayisa grew up with ambitions of being a medical doctor, but during his advanced level education, he found himself in nursing.

As soon as he started his internship, Mr Nambayisa started developing passion for nursing, during which a number of injured patients made hm switch to nursing.

The 53 –year –old husband and father of three is a critical care nurse who is currently working as director of nursing in the critical care unit at King Faisal Hospital. He is also in charge of intensive care unit, high dependency unit and operating theatre.

“I started working at King Faisal in 2007 as an anesthetist nurse who carried out anesthesia for various surgeries. Between 2009 and 2012, I joined Kigali Health Institute for my Advanced diploma in critical care nursing,” said Mr Nambayisa.

In line with his profession, Mr Nambayisa had to join University of Kwazulu Natal for his bachelor’s degree in critical care nursing. Due to his determination, he continued for his Master’s Degree for two years at the University of Rwanda, College of Medicine and Health Sciences in Critical Care and Trauma Nursing.

“Critical care and trauma nursing is when your able to look at the patient’s inner soul and get to see if he/she is improving or not and making sure they take their medication well,” said Mr Nambayisa.

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He said trauma nursing is where a nurse is able to take care of patients who suffer from severe injuries or illnesses with care, and being able to see if there any improvements or deterioration in health that would appear in the process of treating the patient.

“I grew up desiring to become a doctor because I admired seeing how doctors were able to treat patients with life-threatening conditions,” said Mr Nambayisa.

“Many people think nurses are only women, but that is not true because as long as you love what you are doing, nothing can stop you,” said Mr Nambayisa. I always wanted to be of help to patients in any way possible I could since I knew how much a patient would be suffering, he detailed.

"On completing my studies, I was given an examination that I passed so well hence promoting me to director of nursing at King Faisal Hospital,” Said Nambayisa.

“There is an image I can never erase from my mind of a child who breathed her last in my eyes in a nursing school I was teaching in by then. The child was suffering from measles and had breathing complications due to a careless doctor, who had sent the parent for medicine instead of treating the child first,” Said Mr Nambayisa.

As a critical care expert with 20 years’ experience, Mr Nambayisa starts his day at exactly 7 am and retires at 7 pm after going through every patient’s files.

Besides his passion for his job, he experiences tough days too.

“We are only three that are proficient and a few critical care nurses who have to look after patients who are in critical conditions which makes it hard for one nurse to manage several patients at the same time in a given unit since each nurse is given two units to manage,” said Mr Nambayisa.

He add that there are also a few experts in critical care nursing which makes him get involved in other duties that are not meant for him.

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