Nurse Gaitree Surajpaul

Mar 21, 2021 News

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Our Frontline Worker of the week is…

By Romario Blair

Kaieteur News – “There are days when I just can’t wait to get to work, because bringing relief to my patients is one of my greatest desires…being in the healthcare profession is delivering care for everyone, and I believe that once you’re a nurse, you’re always a nurse, because you can always lend assistance to someone in the community.”
Those are the words of Gaitree Surajpaul, a dedicated, 46-year-old, midwife, who has been serving in the healthcare profession for the past 20 years. She told Kaieteur News that her years of experience have exposed her to countless challenges over the decades. With just a few years from retirement, Nurse Gaitree, could not have foreseen that her greatest challenge in the medical field was yet to come – the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nurse Gaitree said that she could’ve never imagined working through one of the deadliest pandemics. Nevertheless, when the pandemic reached Guyana in March 2020, she volunteered to work in the isolation department of the Suddie Public Hospital, even though she had little knowledge of the disease.
She revealed that “since confirmation of COVID in March, I volunteered to be in isolation. Like most of our frontline workers, it was frightening initially. There was always that fear that I might contract the virus through some weakness.”
Nurse Gaitree explained that while on the frontline, she has delivered pregnant mothers, who are COVID-19 positive. The Suddie Public Hospital, which is located on the Essequibo Coast, usually admits high-risk pregnant women who travel from communities in Region One. Region One, was labelled a COVID-19 hotspot, during the early phases of the pandemic in Guyana.

GIVING SUPPORT
When asked to describe a typical day in the isolation department, she said, “It’s almost the same procedure when it comes to delivery, but certain aspects of it is more challenging, for instance, counselling the patient in isolation can be intense because we now have to do it from a distance to avoid too much of physical contact.”
Nurse Gaitree said that despite the challenges, she strives to be supportive to her patients, and will find alternative means by which to comfort them. “Empathy goes a long way in delivering counselling, because one of the things we find is that most of our patients, since they come from a distant region, they will want that family support, but being in isolation means they can’t have that. So that’s where we come in and try to give that needed support, so our patients can also have good mental health and safe delivery, in my case.”
For Nurse Gaitree, the nursing profession wasn’t always her first choice, yet it is one that she has grown to love. She grew up at Zorg on the Essequibo Coast, and perused her secondary education at the Abrams Zuil Secondary School. Unfortunately, she dropped out of secondary school. She later got married to her husband, Ganeshwar Surajpaul, and their union produced four sons.
In an attempt to gain employment, she hastily filled out an application for nursing, and was later accepted at the Suddie Public Hospital. “I always wanted to be a teacher, but later on after I got married, a friend encouraged me to apply for nursing, which I later did. When I got accepted, I initially received training at the Suddie Public Hospital, that’s where I did the Nurse Aid programme.”
In the year 2007, she completed a Midwifery training course at the New Amsterdam Hospital. Nurse Gaitree revealed that this was the single most challenging time for her in the profession, as she had to peruse studies in another region, while her children remained on the Essequibo Coast. “It was challenging, just having your family home and having to travel back and forth all the time… I’m happy I was successful,” she remarked with pride.
Nurse Gaitree said that she owes much of her success to her mother and husband. “I owe much of my gratitude to my mom, because when I had to leave the coast, she helped to take care of the boys, and at that time the eldest was just 11 years old.”

LOVE FOR NURSING
According to her too, the Midwifery programme helped to tremendously enhance her love for the nursing profession, since the joy of safely delivering a baby is unlike any other she has ever experienced.
“I really love the delivery part. Being a nurse aid was great, but I feel that there was a limit as to how much I could’ve done. But when you’re a midwife, you always have the joy of wanting to go back to work so that you can bring relief to those mothers in pain… for me the only time the job gets boring is when the ward is empty,” she shared.
Nurse Gaitree revealed that while delivering a baby is a privilege, it equally requires a responsible attitude and discipline. When asked if she gets anxious during the process of delivering a baby, she said, “I just put God in front of everything. I say because of God everything is possible; once you put God in front, you automatically clear your mind of the anxiety and I get a safe delivery.”
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, she said that additional caution must be taken to ensure that the virus is not transmitted from the mother to anyone else. “While the infection in most of our patients is not that severe, we try to exercise caution while delivering newborns, so that the virus does not spread from the mother. But so far we have never had any of our babies with complications after birth.”
With the introduction and now administering of the COVID-19 vaccine, Nurse Gaitree is hopeful that the daunting threat of COVID-19 will soon be a thing of the past. “I believe that COVID-19 is coming to an end. At our institution we have two positive males, and we didn’t have a pregnant mother coming for a long time.”
Nurse Gaitree’s advice to members of the public is to take their COVID-19 vaccine once they become eligible, despite possible side effects. She went on to state that “I had my vaccine shot and I had a lot of side effects, many of which were mild. But at the same time, you’re at risk if you don’t take the vaccine, and like any other medication, there will be side effects. If you take the vaccine and you experience any major side effects, you can always visit the nearest hospital.”

 

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