Nurses, janitors, lab assistants: Faces in front-line of battle

NEWDELHI: A thirty-eight-year old nurse in Delhi’s Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) Hospital, one of the caregivers of the 68-year-old woman from Janakpuri who died of Covid-19, got to know of her patient’s death a day later, on Saturday morning. Though she had seen many deaths in her decade long career, this felt like a personal loss.

“For the last three to four weeks we had been working like machines. Three patients were admitted here after being tested positive, but we all tended to them without worrying about our own safety. Despite all training, we were not prepared to handle this death. We thought things were under control,” the nurse, who did not wish to be name, said.

Many nurses, lab assistants and janitors handling the infected people, are in the front line of the battle against Covid-19. However, many of them fear that the close proximity with suspected people, might come as a hurdle in the task they face.

In the nodal centres such as Safdarjung Hospital and RML Hospital, the sudden outburst of patients has also worried the healthcare workers.

“How much can you cover yourself up? People are in panic mode and the hallways are full of people who suspect they have the virus. What if one of the patients we are in touch with ends up having it and we are not geared for it?” a nurse at RML said.

In China, USA, Italy, and in the Middle East countries, the number of Covid-19 infected includes several healthcare workers, who were in close contact with the infected. In China, a government notification said that doctors, nurses and paramedic were at a 40% higher risk of contracting the virus if standard precautions were not adopted.

An advisory issued by the WHO advised governments to ensure all the necessary protective gear to these professionals as they tend to patients.