Reading through the comments, I realized a lot of people were calling the story a lie because they felt there were inconsistencies in the story, especially between the time frame I should have gotten the prophylaxis. I don’t blame them for having doubt. They were not there with me and didn’t experience what I went through with me, so it will be hard for them to understand. Let me set you up from the beginning of things, even before the pregnant woman arrived.

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As I indicated in my first story, the health center was new in a village far away. Before the hospital could operate, I had to go there and help scrub the floors so they could have clean rooms. We had to help paint the place and mount a signpost that said the place was a health center. I was then made the head of my unit. So I was a new person in a place that was just about to operate as a health center. I knew very little of the village itself and the people I could talk to when I found myself in trouble.

And there’s something most people don’t know when it comes to working in the hospital. We preach against stigmatization and even run adverts on our screens encouraging people not to stigmatize people who carry certain diseases. You might think health workers would know better, but the place where the highest stigmatization happens is in the hospital among health workers.

If you’re a nurse and it becomes apparent that you’ve been exposed to certain diseases like HIV, you’ll walk by and your colleagues will be talking about you. You sit next to them and they push away from you. You’ll hold a pen and no other person will touch the same pen again. You’ll become the news in the facility, and if you don’t take care, you’ll either be suicidal or stop working.

So when the issue happened, I was careful who I talked to. It was the reason I didn’t talk to my in charge. If that woman got to hear of it, everyone around and in the village would have heard what had happened to me. I couldn’t have also left my post and gone around looking for prophylaxis because I’d just delivered a baby who needed care. I was the only qualified midwife on duty. Leaving my post would have brought a lot of questions I wasn’t ready to answer, so I called a nurse friend from a nearby facility. She was shocked and disturbed at the same time, so she told me, “I’m out of the clinic, but I will call someone there and ask if they have stock of prophylaxis.”

A few minutes later, she got back to me and said they were not having stock. My spirit took flight. I asked her, “So where do you think is the best place to get some?” She answered, “Unless we contact the main hospital, but unfortunately, I don’t know anyone to call from there.” Then I asked her, “Can I just walk in there and ask them to give me the drug?” She answered, “I don’t even believe they have stock because if they did, we would have also had stock.”

Later, we agreed she was going to check anyway and get back to me on what the situation was. I lived in the village and was even sleeping in the hospital facility. It wasn’t easy getting transportation out of the village, so I wanted to be sure of where to go first before I left, since every hour counted.

I called a nurse I worked with in another facility I once worked at, hoping to hear good news. I called several times and she wouldn’t answer. I had to call another midwife I trusted I could share the news with in the same hospital, but she also wouldn’t answer her phone. So my options were either to wait for feedback from the first person I called or wait for the other two people I called to call back. Time was still going. It didn’t wait, knowing I was in a situation and I needed it to stop or slow down. It kept tick-tocking away.

Hours later, they called. They listened to my situation and they were also in dismay. The midwife said, “Give me a few minutes. Let me call someone and ask them if they have it in stock.” The nurse also said the same thing. I had to wait while time kept moving. It happened on a Friday. Twelve hours later, when evening was just approaching and I hadn’t heard anything from those I called, I decided to move to the facility in the city where I once worked.

I got there and spoke to the doctor on duty. He said, “ART works only during the day, so the nurse you called should have informed us that you were on your way so we could keep the drug at the pharmacy for you.”

Prophylaxis doesn’t go to the main pharmacy. It’s mostly kept at designated places. I was desperate. I asked the doctor if there was a patient who had it and if it was possible I could take hers. He shook his head. “You can’t do that, and it’s not like we have clients every day here who have their drugs with them.”

Eventually, it turned out they also didn’t have prophylaxis, even in a huge facility like that. You’ll be shocked if I mentioned the name of this hospital. Very popular.

There was no hope for me, so I had to travel back to the village and think of another plan since my contacts had been exhausted. Eventually, the first lady I called was able to organize some of the drug for me. Apart from the fact that I was getting the drugs late, the drug I had was expiring.

Usually, the drug is taken within a month, but if you’re able to take it within seventy-two hours of the exposure, then two weeks is enough to get you better. The one I had was expiring in two or three weeks. It was as if the universe was conspiring against me. I took it all the same, but it didn’t work, and I ended up being infected.

A lot of people were also asking why I was working without PPE. We see health workers in movies fully geared up, and it’s a beauty to behold. Sometimes these scenes can even make you have an appetite for health work. Unfortunately, in Ghana, what we see in the movies is starkly different from what we experience. The only PPE I had that day was hand gloves. The health center didn’t have anything. Even the fetal heart monitor at the clinic was my personal one, and it’s what they still use today.

I wasn’t surprised when many people didn’t believe my story. You have to be there and experience it to know. Some called me careless. Others said I already had it before the event because what happened was very unlikely to have caused me to have HIV. Trust me, I read all these comments laughing because I understand. And the good thing is, I’m no longer that same girl that went through the ordeal.

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I’ve grown. I’ve matured. I’ve come to understand that life happens. You might hear, “This happens in one in a million” and think you can’t be that one in a million it happens to, but guess what? Life has a way of having the last laugh. This is my story. I’ve come to own it, but it’s also understandable if you don’t believe me or judge me or call me who I am not. It doesn’t change anything. It happened, and I’m the one it happened to. I can’t change that.

—Maame Nurse

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