{"id":10821,"date":"2025-12-24T18:40:33","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T18:40:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/involvement.co.ke\/?p=10821"},"modified":"2025-12-24T18:40:33","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T18:40:33","slug":"sleepless-on-duty-the-health-risks-of-night-shifts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/invo.nyarango.me\/index.php\/2025\/12\/24\/sleepless-on-duty-the-health-risks-of-night-shifts\/","title":{"rendered":"Sleepless on Duty: The Health Risks of Night Shifts"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Chelangat Caren,<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Working the night shift has a myriad health hazards. Besides dark mood swings and severed
\nsocial and family life, there is also unpredictable work-life balance and burn-out.<\/span><\/p>\n

Done with heart rhythms, leading to heart problems, the most common being the Ischemic
\nheart disease that is caused by inadequate supply of oxygen and blood.<\/span><\/p>\n

People likely to work the night shift include security guards, cops, soldiers, long-
\ndistance transporters, late night radio presenters, customer service operators, airline crew,
\ndoctors and nurses.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Covid-19 pandemic, which made many people to work from home, also had others working
\nlonger into the wee hours. The most affected are those in essential services, including
\njournalists, who have \u2018the graveyard shift\u2019. But majority of those working remotely fail to
\nmanage working hours, an issue that increases working hours.<\/span><\/p>\n

Take Collins Ajwang\u2019, a nurse at Jaramogi Oginga Teaching and Referal Hospital, in Kisumu, for
\ninstance.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ajwang\u2019 works for six nights in a month, hours that also have high work volume. During night
\nshifts, he reports to work at around 6pm, and leaves at 10am the next day.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ajwang\u2019 manages a ward with 50 patients, together with his colleague, and roles entail
\nreceiving admissions, handling emergencies, besides feeding, stabilising, and giving medication
\nto patients.<\/span><\/p>\n

This can lead to burn-out, considering \u201cvolume of work at night is heavy, as compared to during
\nthe day, when patients can be cared for by their relatives,\u201d says Ajwang\u2019, who adds that though
\nhe sleeps during the day, he is often interrupted as \u201cnoise from neighborhood and family
\ndemands cannot allow me to relax enough.\u201d With a lot of work and associated risks during night
\nshifts, Ajwang\u2019, also the Nurses Association of Kenya, Kisumu branch chairperson, says the
\ngovernment should increase risk and extraneous allowances for nurses.<\/span><\/p>\n

Not only is the nurse predisposed to fatigue, but recent research reveals working the night shift
\ndeprives employees of sleep and most also risk contracting heart related diseases. This can be
\nfatal.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Chelangat Caren, Working the night shift has a myriad health hazards. Besides dark mood swings and severed social and family life, there is also unpredictable work-life balance and burn-out. Done with heart rhythms, leading to heart problems, the most common being the Ischemic heart disease that is caused by inadequate supply of oxygen and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10824,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/invo.nyarango.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/invo.nyarango.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/invo.nyarango.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invo.nyarango.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invo.nyarango.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/invo.nyarango.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10821\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/invo.nyarango.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invo.nyarango.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invo.nyarango.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}