Having tirelessly served the public for four decades… Nurse Ramkumari Kanhai is indeed a ‘Special Person’

Nov 01, 2009 News

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“Nursing is a noble profession that brings with it varied experiences of laughter and tears, blood, gore and sometimes fears, but it is most satisfying to help gravely ill people recover and walk out of the hospital with smiling faces, healthy and happy.
Many have left for varying reasons in search of greener pastures but there is one nurse, days after retiring, who is ready to do it all over again in Guyana.

By Mondale Smith

Sixty-year-old mother of one, Ramkumari Kanhai, a registered nurse/midwife, is now enjoying bittersweet retirement after 38 years in the profession at the St Joseph Mercy Hospital.
During her tenure she has delivered hundreds of babies, given medical care to thousands of patients from every stratum of society, and vows she would do it all over again if given the opportunity. The second time around she insists she would like to qualify herself even more. Nonetheless, Nurse Kanhai is satisfied that she has done her bit “to make thousands of people healthier”.
She was born and grew up in humble surroundings in the Hope West Squatting Area on the East Coast of Demerara and recalled walking long distances to get to the train station to get to work when there were no roads. “It was plenty mud… then I moved to Kitty in 1975 with my husband but we moved back to Enmore at the family house in 1994 for personal reasons.” She now resides in her own home at Track ‘A’ Coldingen, also on the East Coast.
As a school girl at St Marks Anglican which has since been renamed Paradise Government School, she recalled her fascination at watching the health visitors helping people and that fuelled her interest in becoming a nurse.
This special person’s rewarding journey actually began in October 1967, as a student nurse – in the days when, she opined, the profession was a highly respected one.
But it was a decade later that the impact of her choice of career took full effect. In what she describes as her “most memorable experience” she helped deliver her first baby in 1977. As she recalled, midwives in training had to observe 25 cases before they were given the okay to perform a delivery. “I was nervous and anxious. Words can’t explain my joy when the baby, a boy, came out and started to cry. His voice was refreshingly strong….I distinctly remember he was five pounds six ounces.”
There were, after that, hundreds of deliveries to follow over her almost four decades as a nurse/midwife. Nurse Kanhai also served as counsellor for most of the patients and reflected that “every birth was different” She recounted that youngest mother was 15. To her delight, many of the babies she has delivered have returned as adults to say “thank you” and she notes proudly that some have ascended to high office in Guyana, the Caribbean and around the world.
Like most individuals who have demanding jobs, she also had her times when she wanted to ease herself away from being consumed, but admits that her husband Baldeo and later her daughter Sharon kept her sufficiently encouraged to stay the course. She also credits her love for life and seeing people healthy for making her stay on the job.
Her duties did not only entail delivering babies. “I remember when a man came in with his wife. She was unconscious and he was hysterical. The doctor told him she needed three units of blood to undergo surgery. The hospital provided one unit and two more were needed. He (the husband) was not concerned about that, he was infuriated. He wanted her to have the surgery and as I tried to explain to him the risks involved, he started to break windows and I was afraid, but I tried to counsel him.”
But the man would not hear of anything that the nurse was saying and the nursing administrator had to come out in support as the man threatened to kill her.
She said “He grabbed a bedside locker and ran at me with it and I had to hide behind the administrator. But she too was afraid and shouted, ‘run Nurse Kanhai’ and I bolted down the corridor.”
The security had to get involved. The patient unfortunately died.
Nurse Kanhai related many other stories of challenging experiences that would have acted as deterrents, but she stressed “Something in me always pulled at my heart strings saying, you have a job to do and people need you.”
“You have to be observant, diligent and committed, but above all you have to be honest and do the right thing because you have graciously been chosen to preserve life.”
A Hindu by religion, she says there are times when all you can do is pray after applying all the medical know-how. “As a nurse I have learnt that prayer changes things…to me, faith can move mountains, but you have to believe that it can. The medical training taught me a lot and at this age I’m still learning about technology.”
During her tenure, opportunities and offers came in abundance but while she travelled to Canada, USA, Suriname and Trinidad & Tobago she admits always missing home and her extended family; the patients.
“Guyana is in my heart, no matter what, and I believe I was born to help people and I can’t ever complain of any lasting, bad experience at Mercy Hospital and even when times were tough for families my commitment remained.”
A few days into retirement she says, “even now while I’ve retired because of the age factor I’m actually hoping that I will be back on the job in any capacity, because I believe that I still have the best years ahead and I’m confident that I can still make a difference.
Summing up her 38 years in the nursing profession she said “It was the best and worst of times but after moving through the ranks from a student to being a registered nurse to becoming a Nurse/midwife and eventually the Director of Nursing Services at the St Mercy Hospital, I have absolutely no regrets about making the choice and if I could I’d do it all over again.”
The retiree said too that “in nursing there is no race, culture or creed, there are only human beings needing your help, and despite your religious, cultural or other persuasions your job is to make people healthy and unite families.”
To aspiring nurses she said “You need to see nursing not as a job but as a vacation where you get to be the nice person serving and saving lives.”
Nurse Kanhai believes that many persons who have chosen the career are committed but there are some who are not focused on the tenets of nursing, mostly entering the profession as a springboard to travel overseas. “You have to love and be committed to the job,” she said.
She expressed the belief that there should be an attractive financial plan in place to motivate nurses and make up for their sacrifices so they would stop migrating. She opined that the authorities should, above all, put arrangements in place for nurses, after a number of years of commitment, to be able to afford house lots and at least, some mode of transportation.
“You don’t make much money from being a nurse but the satisfaction money can’t buy when you see people at death’s door and nurse them back to health…those experiences words cannot describe…hearing thank you is more than any money can buy.”
“Nursing is a noble profession that brings with it varied experiences of laughter and tears, blood, gore and sometimes fears, but it is most satisfying to help gravely ill people recover and walk out of the hospital with smiling faces, healthy and happy.
Many have left for varying reasons in search of greener pastures but there is one nurse, days after retiring, who is ready to do it all over again in Guyana.”

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