COVID-19: Despite Lack of PPE, Kerala Nurses Working Across Country Unfazed

As the number of COVID-19 positive cases increases across the country, the number of virus-affected health professionals, especially nurses, have also been increasing. With a pandemic to counter, health professionals are working in the most adverse conditions without proper equipment. 

Ever since the virus made its presence felt in India, the medical fraternity has been pointing at the shortage of PPEs (Personal Protective Equipment). In wake of Prime Minister Modi’s ‘Taali Bajao’ campaign, fashioned as a gesture of solidarity with the healthcare workforce, doctors have openly come out and appealed to the government to provide for PPEs. 

Back then, the Resident Doctors' Association (RDA) of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi, wrote to Prime Minister Modi about immediate issues the fraternity was faced with. 

“..our frontline healthcare workers – doctors, nurses, and other supportive staff – have come forward with their problems and issues related to the availability of PPE, COVID-19 testing equipment and quarantine facilities, on social media. The officials should view these inputs constructively. Instead of appreciating their efforts towards the welfare of their peers and patients, they have received a harsh backlash,” the RDA said in a statement on April 6. 

So far, scores of doctors and nurses have died from COVID-19 across the world. Several have contracted the novel coronavirus in India as well. Most of these nurses who have tested positive are from Kerala, who are working in various cities across the country. According to the Indian Nursing Council, of the 20 lakh registered nurses across the country, 18 lakh are from Kerala. 

The nursing community from Kerala has travelled to remote locations across the world, and the trend still continues. “Nurses trained in India form a significant portion of internationally educated nurses working overseas, second to nurses trained in the Philippines. It is estimated that over 30 percent of nurses who studied in Kerala work in the UK or the US, with 15 percent in Australia and 12 percent in the Middle East,” says a WHO report. A large number of Kerala’s nursing community work in other parts of India with Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai among their preferred cities.      

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On April 6, 51 people working in a private hospital at Mumbai tested positive for COVID-19. Of the number, 40 nurses are reportedly from Kerala. A week later, three Malayalee nurses in Mumbai and one in Pune tested COVID-19 positive. A day later, on April 14, two nurses from Kerala working in a private hospital in Pune reportedly tested positive. Nine others have been tested positive at the State Cancer Institute in Delhi. These are other cases of Malayalee nurses testing positive in various cities across the country. 

Even after nurses contracted the virus, respective government authorities continue with their apathy. The nurses who tested positive in Delhi had alleged that they were not given treatment for the disease, even filing a complaint about it. One of the nurses said she got herself tested after another staffer in the hospital tested positive for the virus.

“We did not even get an ambulance to go to the hospital. So we had to go to Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital in a private vehicle along with my children. I am staying in the hospital with my children who are eight and four years old,” she was quoted saying.  

Following the incidents, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi as well as the Chief Ministers of various states asking them to provide proper protective equipment and care to health workers from Kerala.

Over in Kerala, only one nurse had tested COVID-19 positive in the state. The nurse, Reshma Mohandas, who works at the Government medical College, Kottayam, has been cured and is now under 14 days of home quarantine. 

Reshma, who had attended to 93-year-old Thomas Abraham and 88-year old Mariyamma, the couple whose recovery was dubbed a 'miracle cure' by members of the medical community, declared that she would come back to work and serve patients after the mandatory quarantine.  

Talking about the dominance of women from Kerala in nursing, Maya John, an assistant professor in the department of history at Delhi’s Jesus and Mary College, observed that nursing has been a profession sought after historically among Malayalee women, who wanted to enter a profession with a social impact. Even men have entered it in increasing numbers recently. “One of the important factors for this change in the gender composition is there is a perceived high employability of nurses particularly abroad, so there is an attraction of quickly getting a job in the Gulf countries or other places which has in the recent years encouraged lot of men to join this profession,” she said.

Speaking to Caravan Magazine, John also observed that nurses have been highly unrespected and underpaid in India. And while they have been organising, exploitation in the private sector still continues. She added that the private hospital lobby” in India has prevented relief measures such as standardisation of wages, which has forced nurses to migrate.

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