Rwanda ’s Nurses Communicate to Protect Themselves and Their Clients

By Casey Bishopp, Communications officer, IntraHealth International ; Philippe Kayibana, Community health facilitator, IngobyiApril 07, 2020Philippe Kayibanda is a registered nurse with 13 years of experience working to improve Rwanda’s health system. For him, it’s the power of communication that helps nurses meet their own needs while responding to COVID-19 and caring for patients.“I want nurses around the world to improve communication on their teams,” he says.“In order to be successful, we have to communicate our challenges, our experiences, and our lessons.”When Kayibanda became head nurse at Mareba health center in 2005, Rwanda was actively engaged in reconciliation efforts from the1994 genocide.“I made it my responsibility to build trust and promote unity and reconciliation inside of my team and in the surrounding community, because I knew that we cannot succeed with a divided team,” he says.“It was not easy to manage people born with different family histories who were dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder brought on by the genocide.“Dialogue was very closed, with poor collaboration inside the team, between health teams, and with the community. To improve this, I created an environment in which all staff could express their feelings at work at any time and respected everyone’s ideas in all activities we planned. We used a participative style during our staff meetings and presentations. We organ...
Source: IntraHealth International - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Infectious Diseases COVID-19 Education & Performance Leadership and Governance Health Workers Nurses Source Type: news