02/10/2025
In Nigeria today, health care workers are carrying crosses nobody talks about.
From the nurse in the village PHC who works without light, running drips with torchlight, to the doctor in a government hospital seeing over 100 patients in one day, their struggles are endless.
They face shortage of staff, lack of equipment, delayed salaries, and yet, when something goes wrong, the whole blame falls on them. Patients and relatives hardly see the nights they sleep on benches, the meals they skip, or the times they use their own money to buy gloves, cotton wool, or even fuel for the generator just to keep someone alive.
Instead, people notice only the errors. They forget that fatigue, hunger, and frustration can make even the strongest human weak.
Still, health workers in Nigeria continue to show up. They show up during strikes when others walk away. They show up during epidemics, risking their lives in places no one else wants to enter. They show up even when their own families complain that they are never around.
The truth is that health workers are humans, too. They bleed, they cry, they break, but they rise every morning, not because the system is fair to them, but because they can not watch others die when they can help.
So before you criticize a health worker for any lapses, remember this, behind the white coat and scrubs is a Nigerian like you, struggling, sacrificing, and still giving their best with the little they have.
