Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Nov 28, 2021 News
“It brings me great joy to give patients the care and attention they deserve in order for them to feel better, despite the risk attached to it and the fact that I cannot provide the real medical help. Just making them feel comfortable and talking to them and caring for their physical needs, I know it helps them greatly during this trying time.”
Our Frontline Worker of the Week is…
By Vanessa Braithwaite
Kaieteur News – The innate desire of a mother to provide a better life for her children was the motivating factor behind Linden’s Patient Care Assistant (PCA), Safiea Grenville joining the medical profession. In 2019, she successfully completed the course which certified her as a PCA and she was posted to the Upper-Demerara Hospital.
But little did she know that one year after training, Guyana would have been hit with a pandemic and the hospital she was assigned to would have been transformed into a COVID-19 isolation facility. It was time for Grenville to adapt to the changes and provide the needed support to the doctors and nurses catering to patients in the high-risk zone.
A PCA is someone who provides physical care and grooming for patients in an effort to make them feel more appreciated and comforted. They essentially provide the needed physiological support to the patients. It forms part of the bed-side nursing mandate and is given mostly during post-surgery recovery. Grenville was part of the 54 health professionals who graduated from the Charles Roza School of Nursing in 2019. “My motivation for doing the course was my love for the community and wanting to serve them in a practical way. I always wanted to pursue a career, where I can help people; where I can transform their lives and make them feel better and when the opportunity was afforded, I took it and I have no regrets,” she told Kaieteur News.
While Grenville always enjoyed her job, navigating the system with the emergence of a new virus was challenging and mentally fatiguing but she persevered to give her colleagues the necessary support. “It was challenging at first since COVID-19 is a new virus and we had little knowledge on how to deal with it and to provide care for persons who had it,” she said.
In this regard, Grenville believes that more should be done for health care workers, which means all categories of workers and not just nurses, since they all have been risking their lives since the onset of the pandemic.Grenville revealed the countless times she placed her life and that of her family at risk to care for patients at the Upper-Demerara COVID-19 Isolation Centre. In fact, she noted the inadequate wage provided by the Ministry of Health since the onset of the pandemic, which trigger a spike in the cost of living. The financial challenges have been overwhelming, Grenville, a single parent, related.
In fact, she shared that the state of affairs took a toll on her mentally and emotionally but it was the encouragement from two doctors – Dr. Michael Marks and Dr. Gregory Harris, who encouraged her to persevere despite the hardship she has been forced to face. She also focused on the love for her job and the integral role she plays in comforting patients, many of whom had thought death was near. “It brings me great joy to give patients the care and attention they deserve in order for them to feel better, despite the risk attached to it and the fact that I cannot provide the real medical help. Just making them feel comfortable and talking to them and caring for their physical needs, I know it helps them greatly during this trying time,” she said.
It is for this reason, Grenville has plans to continue pursuing courses which will position her to become a registered nurse and perhaps a doctor subsequently. “This is not the end of the road for me,” she assured, even as she encouraged others who may dream of entering the medical field to do so, since it is a very fulfilling one.
Please share this to every Guyanese including your house cats.
Apr 19, 2024
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