Chennai: The world has been applauding the services rendered by nurses, they are called as ‘frontline warriors’ and ‘Angles on earth’, for each time they put themselves in risk while caring for Covid 19 patients in hospitals.
However, the ground reality seems to be far from reality. Many allege that they have been made to re-use personal protective equipment (PPR) kits, share rooms with other nurses during quarantine and are not given N-95 masks.
“Despite being grossly underpaid and being exposed to such risks, we have been turning up for work attending to each and every patient,” nurses said, when News Today spoke to them to understand the situation.
Sangeetha (name changed) has not seen her family in a while. But she does not complain. A nurse at a government hospital, she says she has got used to the routine.
“It all happened so suddenly. But, our strong team of nurses, PG students and assistants work in tandem,’ she says.
Sangeetha has been in service for three years after clearing Medical Recruitment Board exam. However, she is still not made permanent. She is still a ‘nurse on contract.”
The nurses, she says, work on morning and afternoon shifts, while night duty is divided into two six hour shifts. The hospitals have Isolation wards, Positive wards and Severe Acute Respiratory Illness (SARI) wards.
It is tedious to work by wearing the PPE kits, she admits. ‘We do not use washrooms until the shift conclude. Some senior nurses who are diabetic use adult diapers. We don’t drink water to stop ourselves from using the washroom,’ she says.
After working for a week, nurses quarantine themselves for seven days and re-join duty after a swab test is conducted.
Currently accommodated in a hostel, she says she is waiting to be shifted to a hotel as promised by the government for better isolation environment and food.
At a private hospital. Jagadeesh (name changed) waits after his night shift to have a word with his matron and superiors over the management giving used PPEs after sterlising them. The hospital has at least 250 nurses.
“I am the only male nurse in the ward. We do not like using an used PPE. According to protocol, it is supposed to be discarded. It causes infection and is highly risky. We have not told our families that we work under such dire conditions,” he says.
On the PPE kits, it is clearly labeled, “Single use. No auto clove (steam sterlisation)”. But he alleges that the kits are sterlised, re-packed and given to the pharmacy and again given to nurses. “The management alleges that due to a shortage that there is no other way,” he says.
He claims that those working in the Covid -19 and emergency wards (nurses here are the first to receive any patient) must at least be given N-95 masks and fresh kits. Incidentally, the doctors are given new ones each time.
Far from Chennai, in Thanjavur Medical College and Hospital, Rekha (name changed), who works in the corona positive female Intensive Care Unit, says, it is difficult to wear a PPE and work a 12-hour night shift.
“We do not drink water and even air does not enter. It becomes challenging when we are taking temperature, giving a diet, giving medicine and injection, taking ECG and putting a patient of IV fluids. Sometime, patient coughs near us, at times they refuse to co-operate, shout and come to beat us”, she says.
Her worry is that the PPE kits and face masks are of poor quality.”They do not give us a face shield. We use goggles and an N-95 mask with just one filter. Our cheeks are exposed. Nurses working with Covid-19 patients must be given better protective gears.”
She says that she is put in a room which is shared by three other nurses during quarantine. “This is a danger to both nurses and patients”, she says.
General secretary of the Tamilnadu MRB Nurses Empowerment Association, G Subin says, they have received such complaints from nurses and have taken them up with district Collectors and some issues have been addressed.
Subin works with a primary health centre in Kanyakumari and is given the duty to screen vehicles at Tamilnadu-Kerala border in Kaliyakkavilai. So, does he have a mask, gloves and other protective gear? He says he just has a three layer surgical mask which he got for himself.
Meanwhile, going by sources, many private hospitals have laid off nurses who have less than a year’s experience and those who have been on leave. 81 nurses in a private hospital were forced to give resignation and arrangements were made for them to go back to their native places.