KIU, Western Campus – It took me 7 hours and 5 “come back laters” to get an interview for this story from Renah Masika, a nurse at KIU Teaching Hospital.

When she finally granted me the interview – at 5:37 PM – I asked her why she kept me waiting for so long and the answer was straight to the point; “my patients are more important than any interview.”

Such is the passion that Masika has for her profession which drives her to be the nurse she is.

“I love my job because of the passion that I have for it. I love patients because when they are on the sick bed, they are like children. It is you to help them through almost everything,” Masika says.

And it is because of her passion that Masika decided to pursue a Diploma in Nursing Sciences at KIU Western Campus so that she can gain experience and become a better nurse.

“I want to gain more and more experience and become a better nurse because in our field, you learn something new every day and experience matters a lot in this profession,” she opines.

Masika’s work involves mainly patient care and emergency care because her duty station, Accident and Emergency (A&E) is a very critical unit of the hospital.

“I wake up in the morning, prepare for work and make sure I am there by 8:00 AM,” she reveals.

“When I reach the hospital, I sign in, receive a report from those who have been on duty, and then continue with management of the patients on ward until I sign out at 7:00 PM,” she says of her daily routine.

However, like any other type of work, hers is not without challenges.

She says sometimes language barrier is a problem because you need to interact with the patients so as to provide better care, and also some patients are not cooperative.

Masika is nevertheless a woman on a mission. She wants to upgrade until she attains at least a Bachelor’s Degree so that she can become the model nurse every patient would appreciate.

Photo: Collins Kakwezi