Ronan Kelly
Retired 2020
Intensive care: A day in the life of Swati Palekar, nurse at an Ebola ward
Written by Tabassum Barnagarwala | September 7, 2014 12:14 am
On August 26, the usually bustling 10-bed paediatric ward at Mumbai?s civic-run Hindu Hriday Samrat Balasaheb Thackeray hospital turned grim. Until the previous day, the cries of infants rang through the ward, but now, as an isolation ward for Ebola cases, it was eerily quiet.
The entire 10th floor was closed to the public, with 20 private rooms disinfected to house confirmed Ebola cases. The staff, a few unsure about the fuss over ?some new virus?, waited to receive 112 Indian nationals returning from Liberia that day. Swati Palekar, a 24-year-old nurse, seemed relatively confident. On August 25, the previous day, she had single-handedly monitored Maharashtra?s first suspected Ebola patient in the hospital?s isolation ward, a feat she doesn?t tire of narrating.
Barely five feet, in a pink salwar-kameez and a white coat, Palekar says she panicked the day she was told to handle a suspected Ebola case ? a 32-year-old Indian who had arrived from Nigeria. After all, she had only joined work three days earlier, on August 22.
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- See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/in...-nurse-at-an-ebola-ward/#sthash.TyVG6UaX.dpuf
Written by Tabassum Barnagarwala | September 7, 2014 12:14 am
On August 26, the usually bustling 10-bed paediatric ward at Mumbai?s civic-run Hindu Hriday Samrat Balasaheb Thackeray hospital turned grim. Until the previous day, the cries of infants rang through the ward, but now, as an isolation ward for Ebola cases, it was eerily quiet.
The entire 10th floor was closed to the public, with 20 private rooms disinfected to house confirmed Ebola cases. The staff, a few unsure about the fuss over ?some new virus?, waited to receive 112 Indian nationals returning from Liberia that day. Swati Palekar, a 24-year-old nurse, seemed relatively confident. On August 25, the previous day, she had single-handedly monitored Maharashtra?s first suspected Ebola patient in the hospital?s isolation ward, a feat she doesn?t tire of narrating.
Barely five feet, in a pink salwar-kameez and a white coat, Palekar says she panicked the day she was told to handle a suspected Ebola case ? a 32-year-old Indian who had arrived from Nigeria. After all, she had only joined work three days earlier, on August 22.
....
- See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/in...-nurse-at-an-ebola-ward/#sthash.TyVG6UaX.dpuf