Prioritising the health of her clients

Rosalia Haitamba is a hospital case manager at the Motor Vehicle Accident (MVA) Fund’s Windhoek service centre. She is a registered nurse by profession with over 10 years of experience in both case management and nursing. She started her career at Mediclinic Windhoek private hospital as a registered nurse in the surgical ward and eventually moved to the hospital case management division. She said this experience provided her with a solid foundation when she moved to case management at the MVA Fund in 2019.

Haitamba is a proud wife and mother of three and added that family is the most important thing to her.

She explained that hospital case management is about ensuring that quality treatment and care is given to injured persons and to provide effective rehabilitation from the onset of an accident. It aims at achieving the desired outcome and durable independence for the injured persons as well as ensuring comprehensive customer service provision to both patients and service providers alike.

Challenges

One of the biggest challenges Haitamba has faced in both nursing and case management is wearing her heart on her sleeve and balancing advocacy for patients while managing their benefits. The problem with wearing her heart on her sleeve is that sometimes it makes it difficult for her to concentrate at home because at times she starts thinking about critically-ill patients at work.

She added that although this might be a challenge, things always work out for the best of the clients.

Achievements

Speaking on her achievements, she said during Covid-19, when serving clients was challenging and life-threatening, she was able to do so because she loves her profession and was entirely committed to it. She struggled at one point to balance her passion for helping others and her fear of being too close to them, but she persevered.

She added that she is very proud of herself for completing her studies at Regent Business School last year. She felt motivated to further her studies and decided to register for a short course on risk management this year through the University of Stellenbosch, which she has also since completed successfully.

“The best part of my job has to be engaging patients in hospital,” Haitamba said. She advised young people considering careers in healthcare that it requires certain traits, like patience, empathy, kindness and humility. She further added that you require emotional intelligence too because your clients see you as a source of encouragement. You ought to put your clients' needs ahead of your own, she said.