Our Frontline Worker of the Week is… Nurse Jirshawatie Binda

Oct 11, 2020 News

---

“I felt that teaching was not for me, I wanted more of a challenge and I wanted to make a greater difference in people’s lives and so I felt like I could do that through nursing.”

By Malisa Playter-Harry

Kaieteur News – Among us are some nurturing, caring and selfless nurses who we depend on when we are ill. These are the health care professionals who work hand in hand with the doctors and, since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, their work got even harder as they are placed prominently on the frontlines. We have featured many doctors and other health professionals

who work on the frontlines dealing with COVID-19 patients and suspected cases, but nurses too have been performing their roles just as tirelessly and selflessly.This week, we feature Jirshawatie Binda, a nurse attached to the Rapid Response COVID team in Region Six. At age 31, she comes from the tranquil community of Bengal Farm, East Berbice, Corentyne. A nurse for the past six years, she is currently stationed at the quarantine facility in Rose Hall, East Canje and works a 12-hour shift with 11 other nurses and four doctors.

 

MAKING A DIFFERENCE
She became a nurse because she developed a passion for caring and taking care of people when she was younger. But before she began working in the nurturing profession, she was a teacher. “I felt that teaching was not for me, I wanted more of a challenge and I wanted to make a greater difference in people’s lives and so I felt like I could do that through nursing,” she said.
Schooling for Nurse Binda began at the Number 43 Nursery School. She then moved on to the Number 43 Primary School and subsequently attended the J. C. Chandisingh Secondary School but had many challenges. Despite challenges ranging from financial difficulties to friends and relatives hiding textbooks from her, she pushed on and graduated successfully in 2006. She began teaching shortly after at a primary school but

soon after she resigned and applied at the New Amsterdam School of Nursing.
“Thankfully I was accepted, and another journey started for me; an overwhelming one,” she said. After graduating from nursing school, she worked at the Port Mourant Hospital during the period 2014 – 2017. Her next move was to head to the Anamayah Memorial Hospital where she worked during the period 2018-2019 before gaining employment at the Skeldon Hospital making it possible for her to be ready to take her place on the frontline to help combat the dreaded COVID-19 disease.

BEING A SERVANT
Being her first experience working in a pandemic, Nurse Binda said as a frontline worker, she puts aside the thought of the risks and focuses on being a “servant to public health”. Her responsibilities include checking patients’ vitals, provide encouragement, counselling, among other things. She said she was asked and agreed to work at the quarantine facility since there was a shortage of staff there. Although hectic sometimes, she finds joy and comfort in the fact that she has been given the responsibility to help during such difficult times.
“Frontline workers are on their feet working endlessly to save lives every second. Recently, we have been getting more cases from across the border, some are depressing; some vent frustration and at the same time, we must re-assure them. Whenever duty calls, I assist and although I am based at the facility here, I do go on surveillance visits when people call the hotline if there is a need for additional staff. It’s not scary at all, I see it just as an addition because we have been trained for this,” she said.

PURPOSE DRIVEN
A typical day for Nurse Binda entails administering prescribed medications, providing emotional support, monitoring vitals, encouraging and educating patients. While some patients may go into a state of depression or behave erratic at times because they are being quarantined, her greatest sense of relief comes when a test result returns negative. She said it gives great peace knowing that someone is saved from contracting the deadly disease and thus can return home.
“It makes me one happy nurse,” she said with glee. However, one of her challenges is the wearing of the Hazmat suits. Although she knows it is necessary and compulsory during the pandemic, it sometimes proves to be an uncomfortable code of dress during the hot days. This, she said, does not deter her, for she knows it will not be worn in vain. She mentioned too that one of the added difficulties currently experienced is the lack of a suitable area for donning personal protective equipment. According to her, such an area is especially needed during decontamination.
She believes that her approach to the job she does, comes from the encouragement and support from her parents, Nareshwar and Radica Binda, who pushed her to become someone with a purpose in life. She said her parents have been very instrumental in her life. Moreover, the selfless and hardworking nurse is on a self-imposed mission to encourage other young women to educate themselves and be independent.
“There are many opportunities available now that we must not remain at one place. Try to help as much as you can, you might not know what that person is going through,” she asserted.

---

---