The last image that many patients, hospitalized in Mozambican health units, had is that of a nurse like Abda Bangal, who because of her love for her profession, struggled to save their lives. What many citizens do not know is that these deaths cause pain..
Between the pain and agony resulting from serious accidents, many patients lost their lives being treated by Abda Bangal, who has been a nurse for seven years.
Throughout her trajectory, Abda Bangal claims to have witnessed several losses of human lives, but, on the other hand, she stresses that she also saved thousands. Because of these events, the professional defends the need for nurses to start having psychological counselling.
During her outburst, the nurse remembers one of the first patients of her career, who had received her care to later lose her life after not resisting the disease. The patient in question was a young woman who, during the consultation, had expressed her satisfaction when being assisted by the Bangal nurse.
“I took care of her so much. And it marked me a lot, because she was in a terminal phase. But she later lost her life. That day, I noticed that it’s not easy being a nurse.”
At that moment, with the patient weakened in bed, Adba says that she had become everything. In addition to being a nurse, she adds, “we became psychologists, friends, family, brothers.”
This was one of the most striking deaths in Abda’s professional life. After the patients’s death, the nurse reveals, the most complicated thing is to inform family members that their loved one has lost their life. There you have to be more than a nurse, that is, you learn to be a psychologist.
“There’re deaths we cannot deal with. We close our eyes and think: how could we have saved that person?”, she asks.
From dreams of being in the army to nursing
In 2010, when Abda Bangal decided to take a higher nursing course in Maputo, she was already old. At that time, not even children to raise, nor her husband, much less demotivating speeches, from part of society, could lead her to give up focus of training to save lives. She was 35 years old.
Owing to this persistence, she was able to complete the nursing course within the given four years.
“There are people who thought I was taking the course just to get a college degree. At that time, many of these people questioned my interest in the course. They tried to demotivate me,” she said.
But the support of her husband and family was paramount for her not give up, and to continue with her studies until the end, “I had a lot, a lot of support from my husband.”
But this was not her childhood dream. During the 16-year civil war, one day, a group of military men arrived ather school and gave some basic self-protection lessons.
“They taught us to crawl and hide from the enemy when under attack. That never left my mind, so that, in 2007, I tried to join the military service, but I failed. I was discouraged.”
“Being a nurse is the highest form to express love”
A while later, with her sick grandmother, Abda wanted to take care of her. She had realized that that was a way of showing love to people.
“So I started taking care of my grandmother. When she lost her life, I realized it was what I was supposed to do. Caring for the sick is the highest way to demonstrate our love for others.
In her trajectory, the nurse has helped hundreds of people who reached her in critical condition and this brings her immense happiness.
She says that she would not change her profession, “if I went back, I would again train to be a nurse.”