On May 12, the global community recognizes International Nurses Day, drawing attention to the immeasurable impact nurses have on patients, their health, and well-being, and their broader impact on the provision of primary health care and achievement of health targets across the world.
Nurse Highlight: Nurse Rose
Last year, URC was a part of the International Council of Nurses global series, Caring with Courage: Extraordinary Stories of Nurses, produced by BBC StoryWorks Commercial Productions. As part of this series, URC’s film, A Nurse’s Calling, highlighted the impact one nurse can have on health outcomes and the achievement of TB targets in Uganda.
Nurse Nassali Rose Mugerwa was the shining star highlighted in the film. An Officer-in-Charge at a TB diagnostic treatment center in Uganda’s Mukono District, Nurse Rose shows a tireless commitment to TB eradication. She received training and support from the URC-led USAID Defeat TB Activity, which worked closely with Uganda Ministry of Health’s National TB Leprosy Programme to increase TB case detection and treatment success across Uganda.
A Nurse’s Calling gave a glimpse of a day in Nurse Rose’s life – with responsibilities ranging from patient education, record keeping, providing trainings for other nurses, to patient follow-up, going as far as driving a motorcycle into remote communities to deliver TB medication to patients to ensure treatment adherence.
This is the work of the nurse. The impact of one nurse. Just one.
Protect, Respect, and Value
The invaluable role of nurses like Nurse Rose in health systems and health service delivery worldwide invites a dialogue on how they can best be supported in their roles. The COVID-19 pandemic brought this dialogue to the fore as the global community watched nurses work diligently on the frontlines, and then experience the subsequent burnout and adverse physical and mental health impact of that arduous role.
At URC, we lead a lot of these dialogues to support the well-being, mental and physical health, and work experience of nurses both at the global and local levels and continue to work to identify means of supporting nurses in varied roles and settings.
URC stands with the International Council of Nurses in our commitment to translating lessons from COVID-19 and other global health threats into policy and actions that ensure nurses are protected, respected, and valued.
Nurses go the extra mile to deliver care – we owe them our support.
