Saving lives

Jan 17, 2022 Editorial

Kaieteur News – Sometimes we love them, and sometimes we hate them. But love them or lump them, we can’t do without them. We cannot do without nurses.A medical facility cannot run smoothly without them, their comforting presence, their soothing patience, their reassuring skills. This is what we were reminded of in startling fashion from a news story we carried of what took place at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) recently.
“Cardiology nurses save heart attack patients within hours at CHI” (KN January 14). The caption alone tells the urgency, the life and death scenario that played out twice within a short span of time at the Caribbean Heart Institute (CHI) located in the GHPC complex.
The details are that two middle-aged males who had threatening heart episodes from blocked arteries experienced further complications upon arrival at the GPHC,during remedial procedures in motion at the CHI. In layman’s terms, a bad situation quickly deteriorated into an emergency one, and not once but twice.
According to Dr. MahendraCarpen, Head of Medical Services and Cardiology at the GPHC, an Interventionist Cardiologist himself, this was where the sterling efforts of Nurses Nantonand Rhanlallcounted. They successfully carried out appropriate emergency procedures and were able to give the two men another lease on life. Dr. Carpen was full of praise for the hard work of the two nurses and their willingness to go the extra mile during the ongoing pandemic.
As our article related, Dr. Carpen is proud of the teamwork of the nurses in his department but it was also good to read that other nurses, not attached specifically to CHI, came across from the GPHC to lend a helping hand throughout the remainder of the procedures being attempted.
This is a good story and we at this paper were glad to cover it and salute the two nurses, Ms. Nanton and Rhanlall for their life-saving efforts. Too often we take our public servants for granted.We sometimes treat them with disdain, while conveniently forgetting that they have to perform in a job that not many raise their hands to being interestedin when they choose a demanding lifetime career.This is the particular lot for nurses, who we only hear, of how rough and crude they have been, from those on the receiving end of what were clearly instances of unprofessional conduct. This does severe injustice to those other nurses, who quietly toiltirelessly at their workstations, while presiding over their charges.
As we said before, it is a demanding job, but even that is an understatement, when one considers the range of illnesses and areas that a nurse may be responsible for on any given day. There is pain and woe, and all the frustrations and furies that sometimes accompany such illnesses as well as the dread of patients, and pressure from the hovering presence of worried family members. Everybody wants answers, and they want them immediately and authoritatively.
In terms of the latter, they want to hear what is acceptable to them, because it comforts them and boosts their confidence that all will be well.
From distressed mothers, to crying babies to accident victims, the demands are endless in what could at times feel like a largely thankless job. Victims of violence, be such from gun or knife or whatever other weapon is used, pose their own challenges, and test the skill and professionalism of nurses, who have to hear and bear whatever is thrown their way.
Those are part of the normal routines, which have now taken a different turn, a dangerous one, with the onset of the ongoing pandemic in all of its mutations and mysteries. Nurses now have to fear for their own safety and that of their loved ones at home. In addition, they are called upon to deal with relatively huge numbers of possibly virus infected patients which have brought about serious emotional and psychological stress on nurses, as they go about their jobs with a step that is now heavier and slower than usual.
For all these reasons, we must treasure nurses more.Respect them more, and appreciate them more for what they do daily for us, the less than professional ones notwithstanding.

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