A nurse who does the most difficult job: Calling up kin of Covid victims
When 24-year-old Sheetal Choudhary joined as a nurse at the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences (PGIMS) four years ago, little did she know that three years down the line she would be single-handedly doing the unenviable job of arranging cremations for those succumbing to Covid through two waves of the pandemic.
The energetic Covid warrior has been doing the job everybody shies away from — making the dreaded phone call to family members of the deceased, coordinating with the police, municipal corporation and PGIMS staff, sealing and sending bodies to the cremation ground — for the last year. Till May 1, she had arranged the last rites of at least 700 people claimed by the virus and has not taken a single leave in three months.
On Sunday morning, Choudhary received a call from the father of an 11-month-old boy, who died of Covid on Saturday night. The father wanted to see his son’s face for the last time. Choudhary’s eyes brim with tears as she recalls the harrowing
phone call. “I suffer a breakdown every day on seeing these deaths. It was very difficult for me to console the father and grandfather of the 11-month-old child who battled for his life for four days.” Choudhary, the nodal officer for Covid death management at PGIMS, says her morning starts with people begging her to arrange an ambulance so that they can take the body of their loved ones to the crematorium.
“Making the phone call to the family of patients and receiving them when they arrive for a final glimpse of their loved ones the next day, however, is the hardest part of the job,” she says.
“Last month, I was only able to return home at 2.30am after making a cremation list for the next morning because over 30 patients had died in a single day. The bodies were lined up and our staff struggled to pack the body. A senior police official’s sister had succumbed to the virus at a private hospital in Gurugram and the staff had left the body at PGIMS without informing us. We struggled to identify the body,” she says.
On the challenges faced by the staff, Choudhary says a few Covid patients’ family members had refused to appear for the cremation and asked them to perform the last rites.
“Many people would demand that they be allowed to take the body to their native town or village. A few influential would demand that their relative’s body be cremated at the earliest, but I have always given bodies as per sequence,” she said.
PGIMS medical superintendent Dr Pushpa Dahiya Choudhary is doing work, which other employees refuse to do.
“Her job is high risk, and she has been doing it for the last year. She is single-handedly doing the work of six-seven staff members,” Dahiya said.