As we emerge from the pandemic and everything around us opens up, we speak to people across the country to hear their stories and their struggles Rajashree Talavdekar, 56 Nurse in-charge, BYL Nair Hospital, Mumbai, Maharashtra I relearned simple mantras of life due to my work as a paramedical frontline worker during the coronavirus pandemic: appreciating loved ones, valuing the time I have with them, and respecting my body and its wellbeing. As a nurse at Mumbai’s BYL Nair Hospital, which was among the first to be declared a dedicated COVID-19 hospital (DCH) in the city in 2020, my job during the pandemic was heartbreaking because I closely witnessed the suffering of the patients I cared for. I still shudder to think of the first few days of the pandemic that brought panic, uncertainty, and heartbreak for us all. After almost three decades of service at the hospital, first as a trainee nurse and then as a staff nurse, I was made nurse-in-charge in August 2019. I was given the responsibility of managing and supervising an entire ward. A mere seven months later, the pandemic broke out and everything changed overnight. I was assigned to the COVID-19 ICU ward, and all that followed seems like a blur. At the peak of the pandemic, five to seven deaths were reported at the hospital on some days. It was tough to see patients suffer, and to not be able to alleviate their suffering. It was even more difficult to find words to console families who lost their loved ones during this time. I remember one instance where a nurse I knew and her husband, both severely unwell, were admitted to my COVID ward, and their beds were next to each other. Overnight, the husband died and the body had to be moved immediately to make a bed available. Being seriously ill, the nurse was asleep when all of this happened. When she woke up and called out to her husband, none of us could find words to console her. Such incidents moved us in ways that cannot be described in words. I remember a day when a full-term pregnant woman admitted to my ward died, and every nurse on that floor cried. But we had to don our PPE kits afterwards and resume duties. Just like everyone else, we were all very scared, too. During the first wave, when we knew little about the virus, I recall how security personnel and policemen would form a human chain every time a body of a COVID patient had to be carried to the hearse parked at the hospital gate. No one was allowed to go in and out of the building during those few minutes, lifts would be shut down, doors of wards would be closed. Movement would only resume after all corridors, lifts, and the pathway to the hearse were sanitised. I find this memory quite silly now, even though, at that time, I respected it as the need of the hour. How scared we all were! But I would not have been able to do any of this without my family. I would travel to work from Navi Mumbai every day by the buses provided by the government for frontline workers. Since the pickup point was on the highway, my husband would drop me to the bus stop on our two wheeler. On his way back home, many times he was intercepted by the police and lathi-charged for breaking the curfew. I suggested that he and our children should move in with his parents till the time I was on duty, but they refused saying, “If you catch it, we will all catch it. We are not worried about ourselves.” The pandemic gave me the understanding that the uniform of a nurse gives you a lot of strength and will power. Even though the Almighty may have given me a tough job to do, He has made me the strength to fulfil my duty, too. What I want to leave behind from the past two years The fear and the uncertainty What I am looking forward to in 2023 This uniform is a magical thing. It is a weapon against fatigue, exhaustion or fear of uncertainty. It gives me the courage to face challenges without desensitising me. I want to take that strength and will power into 2023. — As told to Eeshanpriya MS
