An Appointment with the Nurses Council

To work as a nurse tutor in Uganda you must register with the Nurses Council. Fair enough. Shouldn’t be a problem, I thought. I have more years than I care to mention of experience working in nurse education, pieces of paper from various universities, proof of my UK registration, and a recommendation from Kuluva School of Enrolled Comprehensive Nursing where I am expecting to work.

The necessary documentation duly delivered whilst in Kampala, we departed for Arua, 250 miles to the north. After all, nothing happens quickly in Africa.
But one week later, a phonecall. ‘You have an interview with the Nurses Council in Kampala. In two days time’ Ridiculous – £100 return by air, and the bus takes too long. But wise Ugandans said I should jump when they said jump.

Arrived in Kampala, the interview was not in two days time, but in three. They would need $10 to cover the cost of the interview – in dollars, not local currency. The Nurses Council had no physical address. No taxi driver was likely to be able to find it ……. The Uganda Protestant Medical Bureau arranged me a driver, eventually.

Arriving at the Council at 10am, none of the interviewing panel (how many were there to be??) had yet arrived. Ten or so other candidates gradually arrived. Those (most) who didn’t know about the $10 fee, had to go back into Kampala and change Ugandan shillings into US dollars – a traffic-laden journey that took about an hour. Benefiting from their unpreparedness, I was ushered into the first interview. The secretary indicated I should go outside and in again at the next door. She went through a connecting internal door. This is Uganda!

Seated behind a vast desk, I dimly saw the chairwoman of the panel at the far end of the room, the secretary at her left. One other member of the panel arrived halfway through my interview. They noted that I had failed to provide a transcript of the subjects I had studied in my initial nurse training (completed 1975). I was congratulated on my achievements since. It was ‘beautiful’ that I was coming to Uganda for three years. However, I must complete one month’s observation at a hospital in Kampala before being fully registered. Argument on my part that I could do this in Arua was met with passive resistance.

My British pride a little wounded, I reminded myself that I am a guest in a country that may seem to be slow and inefficient, but does have some appropriate regulation of nursing, with which I need to comply.