Parfait Munyemana (23), a professional nurse at Goodwood Dirkie Uys Clinic, uses the social media platform TikTok to give the public insight into the life and work of nurses.
Munyemana studied at the University of the Western Cape and graduated with an honours degree in 2020.
“I essentially started making TikToks in the pandemic in May 2020 as a joke or rather for pure entertainment during the harsh pandemic to keep myself occupied. I began making TikToks every day and one day I suddenly became obsessed.”
In 2021 Munyemana made a TikTok wearing his nursing uniform and it went viral.
“This is where I said I am going to take my direction in terms of my TikTok niche.”
Today Munyemana boasts with almost four million likes on TikTok and over 82 000 followers.
According to Munyemana, this was the video that started the phenomenon of his TikTok nurse idea…
“This video speaks about mothers who are in labour in the ward I worked at,” Munyemana said.
“They would be so eager to push and would shout as soon as they got into the unit but as soon as they were fully dilated, they were scared.”
Real-life situations nurses go through
According to Munyemana when he is asked why he makes TikToks he believes it’s to just show the world the real-life situations nurses go through that no one knows about, but using humour and making it fun.
“My TikToks or my niche in two words is ‘nursing banter’, I want to, or I make videos for viewers to laugh at real healthcare situations that we face daily. I use humour as I know it will not be taken the wrong way or offend anyone, but still gets the message across.”
Munyemana says he gets recognised regularly by patients. “It even gets overwhelming at times, but I am so touched and grateful for anyone I come across because they leave me with words of positivity.”
Nurses overworked and underpaid
In one of Munyemana’s videos, a person commented “that is why we do not get service done” and Munyemana says he understands what the person is saying.
“They are generalising their experiences of government services.”
This is another reason for his TikToks.
Munyemana said people do not understand that nurses are overworked and underpaid.
There are days when there are 60 to 70 patients and only two nurses on duty to deliver optimum services.
“Hence when people comment things like that, I do not feel touched because I do not think they understand the immense pressure we are under as nurses.” As much as there are good comments there are negative comments. Even if it is only one out of a thousand.
“I enjoy the good, but I ensure that I first do my work and do what I get paid for.
“I do not make TikToks during my official working hours.”
‘How I make TikToks’
“I scroll through TikTok for hours every single day. So, when I do find a video that I like I put it in my draft and then think of an idea as to how I can translate that sound into my nursing or health professional sound.
For example, when I hear the sound of someone asking for help, I think about it as a patient asking for something, and create a video. It has to be spontaneous, I should not think too much about it,” Munyemana explained.
“When I make a TikTok about taking a patient off life support, it is not that I will physically do it, but it is about showing people that we work with people on life support.”
Munyemana said most of his ideas are authentic, 10% copied sound and 90% of his nursing ideas.
To see some of Munyemana’s hilarious TikTok videos you can find him on TikTok as @Parfait.
