COVID-19 ICU Nurse, Ronke Griffith

Jul 18, 2021 News

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Our Frontline Worker of the Week is…

“Working with a patient for 12 hours and then coming again and working for another 12 hours caring for a patient, you would get attached to them and then to hear they died or see them die in front of you, it is really heart wrenching.”

By Vanessa Braithwaite

Kaieteur News – In 2008, Linden nurse, Ronke Griffith, joined the nursing profession when she enrolled in the Registered Nursing Programme at the Charles Rosa School of Nursing. It was the start of an adventurous exploration of the anatomy of the human body for Griffith and this drove her to pursue specialisation courses which would position her to serve in an area that allowed for adrenalin rush and critical thinking.

In 2011 Griffith was posted to the Linden Hospital Complex (LHC) theatre where she worked directly with surgeons as they conducted surgeries. This was an experience of a lifetime, according to Griffith. “It was different, it exposes you more to understanding the anatomy and how illnesses actually affect you….you even got to do your own little experiment with sutures, learning the instruments, how to use it currently and which the surgeon should have for what purpose and the surgeon would teach you,” she said. Griffith said that being posted to the theatre was more of a fulfilling task than a challenging one. “Bedside nursing was never my thing, because I always liked critical thinking, so it was either theater, emergency or the ICU, to get that adrenalin rush,” she shared.

SCRUBBING
In 2012, she started scrubbing (working along surgeons) and this inspired her to pursue a course in anesthesiology at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC). That course lasted two and a half years. Upon her successful completion, Griffith was posted back to the LHC’s theatre, where she practiced the newly learnt skills to the best of her ability.
What brings her most satisfaction, Griffith said, is seeing patients being relieved of pain and discomfort. “When you can actually make a patient comfortable and relieve some amount of pain from them, for example the CS (Caesarean Section) patients that would be in active labour and that would be feeling a lot of pain, when they come there and you apply spinal anesthesia, the pain is eliminated right there for surgery, so for me, it is alleviating pain for patients,” she related.
Reminiscing on one of her most memorable and impacting surgical experiences, Griffith said that it was when a 15-year-old student who was stabbed in her back by her classmate in 2019, was able to survive an eight-hour emergency surgery, after multiple organ damage and severe blood loss. “I worked double with that patient and it was a battle to remove the knife because you couldn’t just pull, she had multiple organ damage, but after hours and hours, the surgery was successful and I was happy to be there to play a role in her survival, because the worst thing for me would be to lose a patient on the surgery table,” she said.

COVID-19 ICU
In May, Griffith said a request was made by her Chief Nurse, to serve at the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at Liliendaal, because there was a demand for nurses. Without hesitation, Griffith said she signed up for duty and it has been close to two months she has been on duty at the ICU.

These last couple of weeks, Griffith said, really defined her nursing potential and her love for saving people. It has been a tumultuous journey and one that is testing her mental health. She said despite this, she turns up for each shift with a positive outlook that the job must go on. She was also not fearful of being at higher risk of contracting the virus. “As long as you are living, you can contract the virus but how you protect yourself, is what is important. There is no guessing there. You know for sure that these patients are positive so it is easier to protect yourself. You are out here and you don’t know who is positive and who is negative, but we still take chances but there you know for sure it’s positive patients you’re dealing with and you must protect yourself,” said the fully vaccinated Griffith.
On her third day, it really hit her of how serious COVID is and how quickly it takes lives. “My third day there, we had five deaths on that day. I have never seen so many deaths in one day since I have joined nursing. As these patients die, I kept feeling disassociated, hurt inside and it was like while you are running from one resuscitation, another patient was crashing over there so you have to split and before you know it, somebody else dies…now it is telling on me mentally. All I’m dreaming about is COVID and ICU,” Griffith said of her mental and emotional struggle as a COVID-19 nurse.
She had to learn to not get too attached to patients because this resulted in her crying when someone died. But divorcing one’s self from the emotions is indeed a difficult task since, according to Griffith, “you have to care for the same patients.”
She continued, “working with a patient for 12 hours and then coming again and working for another 12 hours caring for a patient, you would get attached to them and then to hear they died or see them die in front of you, it is really heart wrenching.”
Another emotional ordeal she has experienced is when doctors call relatives of patients to tell them to speak to their relative for the last time. Hearing the relatives cry over the phone and say their last words is something very difficult and emotional to experience, Griffith noted.
Despite these challenges, she is urging nurses to take up the mantle and volunteer their service to the institution since it is badly needed. She also debunked rumours that patients are treated badly in the ICU and stressed that the highest level of care is given to patients and they are fed well, but according to their condition.
Since taking her place at the COVID-19 Hospital, Griffith said she has never seen a fully vaccinated person being admitted, much less die. For this reason, she is encouraging all citizens who are not yet vaccinated and have only taken the first dose, to get fully vaccinated, since “COVID-19 is real and is taking multiple lives daily.”

 

 

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