NAMIBIA CONNECTS | AGAINST THE ODDS, AND IN SERVICE TO OTHERS - nbc

[00:00:00]Take us back. What inspired you to pursue a PhD, and why did you choose work-life balance in the public health sector as your focus?

[00:00:08]>> Okay.

[00:00:09]Um, first of all, I would like I would like to acknowledge my supervisor for taking me through the my research supervision throughout. And in my research advisor, my research supervisor Professor Michael Moyo, and my research advisor Professor Man Atiku.

[00:00:31]It's because of them I am a PhD holder.

[00:00:35]So, I I What what inspired me to to pursue a PhD I mean in academic environment where you practice academic.

[00:00:50]You are forced to when you believe or I believe that when you are in academic, the higher you should aim to complete all the levels.

[00:00:59]But so far, I did not complete it yet.

[00:01:02]The highest it's a professorship, full professorship.

[00:01:05]I'm still somewhere.

[00:01:07]But I have tried.

[00:01:08]Okay. And what um what um trigger me to opt for work-life balance, you know they say um uh charity starts at home.

[00:01:23]Um, where my mom is one of the health profession.

[00:01:28]I've experienced this for the longest of most of the you find you go home and then we have events, we have um Christmas, New Years, and every time my mom is not around.

[00:01:40]She's It She can be either uh serving the community in the community at work every time. And that was supported by the health professional, to be specific in the public health sector.

[00:01:52]Um, being always out there for the outcry of the challenges that they are facing of the long working hours, their burnout, their shortage of staff.

[00:02:03]That actually and then what are the I wanted to investigate what are the cause what are the cause of that.

[00:02:10]And me being patient in the world being also of the community or the public. I wanted to call I wanted also to know what is the main cause of this.

[00:02:22]You will hear out every time you will read newspapers in in newspapers either you will read be be it reading it or watching it being somewhere of where the public they are every time they are just suing the government.

[00:02:38]It can be they were left with a the the one leg was cut the one leg was not the one to be cut off this and this >> Premature birth and so forth.

[00:02:46]>> Exactly. So every time it's just the government that we So I wanted to to investigate what's the the cause of that where I came up to with a work-life balance to find it as a topic.

[00:03:00]>> I want us to look at your challenges because since we're speaking about work-life balance, you know, during your time as you were pursuing your PhD, you know, as a student, your time being an employee as well in an educational environment and also at the same time while you were busy doing your research.

[00:03:18]Take us through some of the challenges and how you overcame them.

[00:03:22]>> Okay.

[00:03:23]Having an 8 to 5 8 to 5 job it's not an easy thing while you are also studying.

[00:03:31]>> Doing research specifically.

[00:03:33]>> research specifically.

[00:03:35]But what I did is I It's time allocation. I practice time allocation.

[00:03:43]So I was committed to my work. 8 to 5 I'm at work.

[00:03:47]I'm at work doing my work 8 to 5. And then after 5 immediately after 5, from let me say from 7:00 I'll be home. I will take the I will do what I need to do at home and then I'll sleep. My family and my associates and my friends, they knew that if you call me after 8 >> You most probably won't be able to pick up.

[00:04:10]>> Exactly. And then I'll wake up at 3.

[00:04:12]From 3 there I'll work on my research.

[00:04:15]And then after that I'll just get up from my table to to go to the bathroom and go back to work. And then Sundays we go to church. That that was my daily routine. So you have to cut off everything. Apart from and the apart from social life. At my age, you know, you have to be, you know, also into social life but you have to cut it. You have to be very committed.

[00:04:37]>> So you would say time allocation was your biggest advantage, especially being in all these two environments, working and pursuing your studies and also being a person, a family person.

[00:04:49]>> Exactly.

[00:04:50]>> Now tell us about the challenges during your research that you found out about work-life balance. Like you said your mother would go and work long hours and still come back and be a mother to you and provide for you and so forth. What were some of the challenges when you were going through this research?

[00:05:07]>> Okay. Most of the challenges when it come to participant participant participants to just And you know, remember this is a I was dealing with people that are the employees that are dealing with people's lives.

[00:05:24]It was very hard to get them.

[00:05:27]So what I did, I created a group. I went to the matrons and then I created a group with a consent letter where I notified them that we should do this on your spare time.

[00:05:40]That was my my challenge of getting the participants. But they were willing to to on their own free time because this is what they are going through. And most of them they were very happy to find such a topic on them for them just to come and unpack what they are going through.

[00:05:58]That was number one.

[00:06:00]Number two is um being now the the travels because I collected data from the four intermediate hospitals. That was the Katutura, Rundu, Oshakati, and um Onandjokwe.

[00:06:16]Traveling there it was all it was a big challenge.

[00:06:21]>> And some of the findings that you found, that the employees or the participants that they make time to speak to you, how did they overcome the personal challenges to make sure that their work life is balanced?

[00:06:34]>> Okay.

[00:06:36]These are the findings, the main findings from my studies. Most of them um uh poor work-life balance, that was the main challenge.

[00:06:48]Balancing Remember we are talking about work-life balance here. How do you maintain? Like my two hands here, they are balanced. And these are two stresses of work and family stresses. If the life is like this and then this is stressing is stressing your work. And if the work is if the life is like this, it's stressing your work. So how now how do you manage these two two stresses? The two stresses the the that was the main challenge Some of them the health professionals they I mean say 90% are females.

[00:07:21]These females they have to the responsibilities of uh number one of taking care of their kids, taking care of their husband, taking care of their their parents in their old age or whatever. They have more responsibility even though work-life balance it affect both. It it can be regardless of the being a man or being a woman, you are we are all affected by work-life balance.

[00:07:45]Fine. Now, in this case, the key findings of the poor work-life balance, they they even explained of saying, "Sometimes you have to you have to knock off.

[00:07:56]I have to knock off at 5:00.

[00:07:57]And these people, they have asked they have asked to take care of the public.

[00:08:03]Now, I have to knock off at 5:00 and you're receiving a call that's an emergency someone.

[00:08:10]You have to wait. While you your job description or your time says you work from 8:00 to 5:00 or these certain hours, if it's time, you have to wait for that emergency to come. And then what do you What is it that now it's now your work encroaching in your life in your personal life. You have to wait for the You're saving people's lives.

[00:08:27]You have to wait for the emergency to come in and then until it's done for you to go. So, these are the the poor work-life balance that That was number one key finding. Number two is the working hours, of which is also included in the working hours. Working hours excessive working hours, irregular working hours.

[00:08:50]So, they end up working irregular working hours. And also they are very Why do they work irregular hours? It's caused by the shortage of staffs.

[00:08:58]They do not have enough health professionals. And also the job is demanding.

[00:09:03]They have When it When it come to the policy, there's a policy that says health professionals should have a certain They have to to take care of certain number of patients, but the patients they are There's a high volume of patients than compared to the health professionals.

[00:09:23]>> Can you walk us through the framework that you developed? And how is it different from what is currently in place?

[00:09:31]>> Okay.

[00:09:32]Um when you are conducting a research on carrying out a research, you should find a problem.

[00:09:39]There should be a problem. You don't just wake up and say, "I want to carry a research while we don't have a problem."

[00:09:46]And they should that problem when that problem should There should be a problem and there should not be a any strategy I may say to implement it.

[00:09:54]You find out a problem and then you try to find a solution on how to do that.

[00:09:59]By Okay, by saying this, I'm trying to simplify by saying there's no framework for managing workload balance currently in the public sector in the Namibian public sector. Okay. So, now with the I came up with the five pillars that developed the framework. Number one is the strategic workforce optimization.

[00:10:20]How do we do that?

[00:10:22]If we do that, we have the For us now to have the flexible shift scheduling.

[00:10:30]The managers, they need to include the the health workers.

[00:10:34]The health workers, these are the front that they deals with patient on a day patients on a daily basis. It's people that knows it's It's them that knows what is happening in the hospitals, how to do A, B, C, and D. So, now for you to have a proper schedule a shift schedule, you must involve them in decision making and planning on how to allocate or how to allocate workload. That's number one when you are speaking of strategic workforce optimization. Number two is a flexible and inclusive work systems.

[00:11:06]We have the flexible working arrangements that can be done or can be applied in the sector. Those are now flexible working hours.

[00:11:14]They should have flexible working hours to allow. If it says you work from 8:00 to 8:00 to 5:00, 5:00 I should be able to go pick up my husband or to go pick up my kids from school.

[00:11:27]My work should not include with one another, should not disturb one another.

[00:11:31]Number and also the remote and teleworking access.

[00:11:35]Number three, that's a pillar. It's institution- institutionalized employee well-being. Most of the of the health professionals be it a doctor a doctor a nurse social worker because when you are talking about the health professional they are all inclusive pharmacist.

[00:11:54]They let me say give a practical example.

[00:11:57]You a health professional or a doctor during an operation and then the patient didn't make it.

[00:12:06]They are all human being like us.

[00:12:08]What happened? You go deal with this trauma just alone.

[00:12:12]They do not have a wellness.

[00:12:15]They do not have a wellness to go there and sit so someone can speak to you at least. So, what I mean with the institutionalized employee well-being I mean to I I I mean the mental health the resources they should have they they should provide because these are also human being.

[00:12:32]The physical wellness programs they don't have a group of physical wellness where they go in because they are working on different shifts. Every time everyone is just busy.

[00:12:42]Why? Shortage of staffs.

[00:12:46]And also the resources and infrastructure enablement.

[00:12:51]They when I was the participant indicated that sometimes you are you are eating your lunch it's your break and you're eating while you are watching the patient.

[00:13:03]That's not conducive at all.

[00:13:06]And the last one is the supportive organizational culture.

[00:13:10]They need a culture that will support the health professionals. Allow them to have the job autonomy. They should allow them to participate and speak out and tell them what they are going through.

[00:13:23]And from there I should not just tell you what I'm going through. You should come up with a strategy on how to help me.

[00:13:31]>> Um if you could implement changes in the Ministry of Health tomorrow based on your research, what would they be?

[00:13:38]>> Okay. I'll just take this, the framework.

[00:13:42]>> With the five pillars now.

[00:13:43]>> With the five pillars now.

[00:13:45]That question is interrelated to the previous one. This will work and then this if they implement this the framework then everything they'll be working at balancing the sector.

[00:13:57]>> Now, for young Namibians, especially women watching, you earned the PhD while serving as, you know, doing your 8:00 to 5:00 job. What message would you like or would you have for them about chasing their goals and also trying to find that work balance?

[00:14:13]>> Okay.

[00:14:15]Um let me give a practical example.

[00:14:19]I can pretend to be sleeping.

[00:14:23]Asleep.

[00:14:24]And then I go to bed and then I sleep.

[00:14:27]You can be talking to me.

[00:14:29]You can be talking to me but I'll not respond because I'm pretending to be asleep.

[00:14:34]So, that means you can you can aim you can aim to to obtain something.

[00:14:42]Pretend that you have you have it already.

[00:14:47]Number one, I wanted to Number one, I wanted to to be the youngest doctor at my workplace.

[00:14:56]And I did that.

[00:14:58]It's not a competition. It's just something that I wanted.

[00:15:01]Number two, um I followed the 100 rules of completing your PhD within the minimum years.

[00:15:11]Minimum years it's 3 years with IUM for you to complete your PhD. The minimum years 3 years, maximum 6 years.

[00:15:18]And I did mine within the minimum years of 3.

[00:15:22]So, I followed the 100 rules, the are rules to complete your PhD on time.

[00:15:27]That's what I followed.

[00:15:30]And uh you have to be very committed. And then you leave other social life, and then you'll be very committed to aim what you want. So, you you you can do it.

[00:15:41]Everybody can do it. If you say you want to do A, B, C, and D, you want to do you can do it.

[00:15:47]You have to be very committed.

[00:15:49]And then you will obtain that.