Harriet Tambudzai Jere

Harriet Tambudzai Jere, 29, is a registered nurse who works in a paediatric ward in Malawi. She has witnessed stigmatization of nurses working in COVID-19 wards. This is her story...

I started working as a nurse in 2015 after obtaining a Bachelor of Science in nursing and midwifery from the Kamuzu College of Nursing at the University of Malawi.

I was motivated to become a nurse after visiting my late dad in hospital; he was in a ward where one nurse, alone on that shift, was caring for many patients. I started thinking that if I pursued nursing, I would be able to make a difference by reducing the problem of shortage of nurses.

When I started working as a nurse, it was not as easy for me, especially when I worked with chronically ill patients on palliative care, such as those with cancer secondary to HIV. However, I am pleased that I made the good choice to join nursing, knowing that I am trusted with people’s lives and trusted to advocate for them even when they are in a critical state.

It makes me proud when my client gets home and is happy, not only because they are returning home healthy, but also because they are satisfied with the quality nursing care services that I provided.

Seeing a patient die is one of the saddest moments of my life. As a nurse caring for a client, it is my hope and expectation that they will get better and return home. It’s challenging when your patient is not responding to treatment despite much effort.

Malawi has been hit hard by HIV, and now it has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. I was deployed to work in a COVID-19 ward. My experience there was that we, as healthcare workers caring for COVID-19 patients, were being stigmatized by our fellow healthcare workers and the community. This is a bit different from the HIV response, where stigma is mostly directed towards people living with HIV, rather than the people nursing them.

This pandemic has affected nurses a lot. Many nurses would report for duty at the nurses’ station, instead of the COVID-19 ward, due to the fear of being infected. This led to an increased workload on the nursing team that did report to the ward. We also lost some nurses due to the pandemic, which worsened the shortage of staff. I was distanced from my family while I was working in this ward, and my social life was negatively affected.

There is an increasing amount of HIV research being conducted. This raises hope for nurses working in the response because if there is more accurate information on HIV available, it is easier for nurses to do their job safely.

My message to new nurses in HIV is that providing evidence-based care is one of the most important components of providing quality nursing care. Knowledge is light.