Kerala nurse raring to return after recovery

Reshma was cured of COVID-19 and is now under home quarantine

06/04/2020, PRESS TRUST OF INDIA,KOTTAYAM

Nurse Reshma Mohandas leaving the Kottayam Medical College hospital.

“I will leave this room within a week after defeating you,” the nurse had vowed after contracting the coronavirus while attending to India’s oldest COVID-19 survivor, expressing unflinching faith in Kerala’s health care system.

Last Friday, Reshma Mohandas, 32, walked out to her home, where she is placed under 14-day quarantine, after she and the elderly man and his wife were discharged from the Medical College Hospital here on being cured of the disease.

Soon after, Thomas Abraham, 93 — whose recovery has been called a ‘miracle cure’ by doctors — and Mariyamma, 88, left the hospital, Reshma, too, headed home, but with the resolve to come back and serve the patients after the mandatory quarantine.

‘World-class system’

“I will leave this room within a week after defeating you [the novel coronavirus],” Reshma had posted in a WhatsApp group of her friends and colleagues while undergoing treatment. “I posted that message in the WhatsApp group because I have full faith in Kerala’s health system. It is world-class,” she told PTI from her home.

The nurse, who took care of Thomas and Mariyamma since March 12, believes she contracted the virus as she was in close contact with and often talked to the couple, who did not wear masks, for they made them uncomfortable. She said she loved taking care of all their needs. “I was not tensed at all. I love taking care of elderly people. We used to talk a lot [in the Intensive Care Unit],” she said.

The warning sign came on the morning of March 23 when she had a throat infection. Reshma immediately alerted the head nurse, who informed the doctors. She was asked to visit the fever clinic at the Medical College and was referred to the isolation facility where she took care of the elderly COVID-19 patients. Some 20 nurses who had come in contact with her were sent to home quarantine.

On March 24, she tested positive. “I did not have any other complications, barring headache and body pain,” she said. Reshma said she was ready to serve in the isolation facility for COVID-19 patients after the home quarantine.

“I am ready to work again in the isolation facility when I return,” said the nurse, whose husband is an engineer.