The severe second wave of COVID-19 has left India reeling and the effects on the healthcare systems across the country has been devastating. It has posed significant challenges for health care workers, who are working incessantly.
In spite of the massive task at hand which sometimes comes at the cost of their personal welfare, the health care workers are selflessly working to save lives. For them, duty takes precedence even over personal loss. That stands right for Rakhi John, a nurse at the All India Institute Of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi.
Despite losing her grandmother on April 2, John carried on her duty to look after the COVID-19 patients. It would not have been an easy choice, but the 33-year-old nurse knew taking time off work at a time when India struggles with a mounting crisis, wouldn't have set a good precedent.?
"My bonding with Amma was eternal. I don't remember my mother as she passed away when I was quite young. My grandmother used to look after me and even taught me like her own kid. She was the one who taught me doing service of the needy ones," John told India Today.? ?
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She decided that her presence was needed more for patients she was looking after than her grandmother¡¯s funeral in Kerala, even during which, owing to Covid protocols requiring bodies to be sealed in a bag, she could not have seen her face one final time.??
John has been on Covid duty since April 25 this year, when the new wave began surging in the capital and across the country.??
It was said that her grandmother was admitted in Kerala's Thiruvananthapuramgovernment medical college during the same time. She had spoken to her briefly before she was admitted to ICU. Then on Sunday, John got the destressing news of her grandmother's death.??
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Amid the deadly second wave of COVID-19 in the country, thousands of people are testing positive for the disease and over 2,000 are succumbing to the infection every day. The virus has not spared healthcare workers either. Many of them have tested positive, are in need of oxygen support themselves while some have lost their loved ones to COVID-19.??
We must not forget how far healthcare workers are going to protect the patients. The onus is also on us to repay their efforts by following all the precautionary measures to stem the flow of coronavirus. It's the least we can do.?
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