Mossel Bay’s angels in white
How does it feel to stick buds up people's noses for a living? Sister Carrie Elliot and her assistant Leonie Kruger can tell you.
They have been working at the Ampath Laboratories testing drive-through station at De Bakke during the national lockdown, and whether it's raining, pouring, or the sun is shining, these two women, who have been called "angels in white" are always on duty to do Covid-19 tests for residents in the Mossel Bay area.
Even though South Africa switched to lockdown level 1 on Monday, many people will still have tests done.
Carrie and Leonie have become Mossel Bay's Covid celebs, with the Mossel Bay
Advertiser receiving letters from pleased patients, praising the way Carrie and Leonie have made an uncomfortable experience more pleasant.
"We have to calm people down and give them all the answers. We get asked many times why we can't do the test by swabbing in the mouth. When we swab in the mouth we test your DNA.
"Now we are trying to find the DNA of a virus and we know that it sits at the back of the nose," Carrie explains. She says the test is unpleasant. "I have tested myself, just to see how it feels, in order to understand what the patients will go through."
Different reactions
Leonie says they get different reactions. "Some people are hysterical. We had a man here who grabbed his throat and screamed while we had a whole convoy of vehicles waiting behind him." They chuckle when they both confirm that men are more squeamish than the women patients.
"We tested a pregnant woman and her husband had to test too. He didn't want to go and after she finished her test she told him: 'Lovey, remember when we were young and we drank shooters and the drink went down the wrong hole, through your nose, and it burnt like hell? Now that's how it feels.'"
It helps the nurses to have a sense of humour, but on a serious note, they say they take all the precautions they can, to not contract the virus from a patient.
"We know we can catch it, but if we protect ourselves properly we won't get it." Their message to Mossel Bay residents is to do the same.
Carrie says the problem with Covid-19 is that it is an unknown entity. "We don't know how it will react. We do know that it spreads in the herd environment. Be careful and take precautions. Don't go overboard just because it is level 1. The virus has not gone."