70: Impact of Corona on Nurses

2020 has been a tough going for everyone, especially the health workers working on the fore front!

The Exhaustion is Real!

This story is from us, 2 friends – Simi Michael and Praveen Paul, working as nurses in one of the reputed hospitals in UAE. When COVID-19 started, our colleagues and we were unaware of how it will impact us – unaware of the physical and emotional stress which came with Covid-19.

Moving on to when Covid-19 reached us and our hospital started taking in patients affected by COVID-19. What remained hidden from normal people is how it impacted us as front-line workers. We have to take care of the patients while protecting ourselves. Hard-fitted masks, the pain of skin peeling, and facial scars along with painful earlobes became a part of our lives. Since we are the first contact of Covid patients, we have to be extra cautious and put on a face shield as well, which is an additional burden over the mask. Very often, it gets foggy and makes it very tedious to work with. These shields are available in only 1 size which is not suited to fit all. No matter the urgency or the necessity to cater to the patient, we cannot handle patients without us the protection kit.

There are times when only one nurse is responsible for proning, positioning, preparing, and caring for the patient, with minimal or sometimes no help.  

As the cases increased, the patients to cater multiplied. The responsibility of saving lives weighed heavy on our shoulders- so much to care for, so much to document. Nurses’ chairs were always empty… There was just no time to stop.

The exhaustion is real. We need to always be on the go, knowing that there is very minimal help. With every new case, we get back on the job, ignoring our squeezing backs, aching legs, and numbed hands.

However, physical stress was still manageable, what became unbearable at times was witnessing the struggle of our patients. The emotional turbulence got even more real with every other case.

Rapid transitions:

 The deterioration in the condition of patients was disturbingly quick.

On Day 1 the patient comes – we speak, we try to motivate, we feed him but the next he is tubed and on day 3 there is another patient on his bed. We have seen losing people with proximity.

Isolated Emotions: No mom to care while we work, no father to share our sorrows.

Through the pain of our patients and the painful days of their loved ones – we had to harden ourselves and be the shoulder to cry when relatives couldn’t meet to console or support each other.

Demanding Situations:

The emotional situations when we felt helpless.

We have seen things that can’t be unseen. A 2-year-old striving to breathe and the mother screaming in pain is not easy. A postpartum mother pulling her life for her newborn. Eagerly waiting kids, unaware if they will ever see their father again. Relatives who are not able to have their loved ones for the last rituals.

Nursing ethics direct us to empathize and never to sympathize, however, with so much happening around us, we often found ourselves on our knees to pray.

Apart from our sorrows of being away from family and physical pain, every day, we go through a million mixed emotions. Happy for a moment and sad the next second…

Our entire experience is an emotional roller coaster!

Unconditionally Happy:

All our hard work and pain seem to pay off when our patients survive and beat COVID. Their silent hugs, the gratitude of their relatives, their reunion, and a new outlook towards life is our greatest reward – “When they are grateful to exist”

Depressing:

Every emotion feels like turbulence. When I am not able to do more to save someone feels like it’s our fault even though there is nothing more that we could do. We put in long hours of constant hard work and people still look at us as the absolute carrier of the disease. Being away from family is the hardest part. We never know when the next time we will see them is? In addition to this, it doesn’t help that we receive minimal pay and are minimally cared for.

Extremely annoying and hurting:

Amidst everything that is already happening, there are the atrocious people I call the ‘Dirty Humans’. It is very tough for us, emotionally, to hold it together when patients or their relatives treat us badly. Some people yell for small things, are unreasonable demanding, disrespectful, and downright ungrateful… but still we have to do our karma and help them fight it. “Life, if not learned now… then when…?”

The life of a “Nurse” was the same before as well… the only difference now is that everything, be it good or bad, has multiplied exponentially.

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