When G Keziah Rani walked into the newly inaugurated infectious disease ward at Hyderabad’s Apollo Hospitals on the first day of her job on March 17 last year, she knew what she had signed up for: excruciatingly long working hours, irregular weekly offs, suffocating PPE kits, and an endless stream of patients accompanied by their desperate relatives.
But the 28-year-old nurse hit the ground running. “My colleagues and I were prepared to face every challenge that came our way,” she told News18 over the phone on Wednesday, as the world celebrated International Nurses Day and paid tributes to health care workers who have been working tirelessly for more than a year now.
Keziah admitted the job was tough and that it inflicted mental trauma on her and her colleagues, who faced stiff challenges stemming from a brutal pandemic. Yet, they were determined to beat all odds.
At times, Keziah said, she felt that no amount of training, grit or determination could give her the strength to cope with the scale of tragedy unleashed by the coronavirus disease (Covid-19).
“Every day we would see scores of patients die in front of our eyes, despite us doing everything in our capacity to save them. We were mentally exhausted. Even now, every death feels like a personal loss,” she said.
For Keziah and her colleagues, the intensive care unit (ICU) at the hospital in Jubliee Hills became the only reality of their lives. They latched on to every little reason to celebrate life there in the middle of heartbreaks and trauma.
“One of the most memorable days of my ICU was when all doctors and nurses in PPE (personal protective equipment) kits came together to celebrate the 100th birthday of a senior citizen. We decorated her room with balloons and got her a cake. She was ecstatic,” she said.
Keziah recalled another such happy occasion, when they celebrated the birthday of a one-year-old boy. “That baby was a fighter; he beat Covid,” she said.
Keziah, who had to live in isolation due to the nature of her job, said her mental health was taking a beating and that she was constantly worried about the safety of her family in Andhra Pradesh’s Guntur district.
“Living in isolation is nothing short of a nightmare. I couldn’t meet my parents for months. I couldn’t meet my friends, go out to restaurants, watch a movie. Covid took away my normal life,” Keziah said. She recalled the “devastating” experience of losing some of her colleagues and family members to the deadly virus.
On her wedding day on October 20, Keziah finally met her parents after a gap of nearly seven months.
“It was a filmy reunion. I hugged my parents and wept inconsolably…it’s really hard to express the wave of emotions I experienced that day,” Kezia said.
With the onset of the second wave, Kezia’s personal and professional responsibilities have doubled. She has to exercise more precautions since she is expecting her first child. At the hospital, she trains young recruits in taking care of Covid-19 patients.
“The second wave has once again separated my family (in Guntur), but this time I am less lonely since I have my husband by my side. Few months down the line, we will become a family of three. We are eagerly looking forward to that,” she said.
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