That is her future plan. The present follows a very prosaic path. Wake up, go to work, put in long arduous hours, try not to think about how dreary and menial some of the tasks are, cram in a hurried lunch most days, return to the hostel/rented accommodation for dinner, have long chats with her fellow nurses, share some laughs, make the call back home, and on her day off, see a Malayalam film (Dulquer Salmaan and Fahadh Faasil are hot favourites). Being underpaid and overworked are the routine badges of her tribe, facts she takes in her stride.
But that is in the normal course of things. When an epidemic comes along, like the H1N1, Ebola, Nipah, now COVID-19, life is suddenly fast-tracked for Sr. Florrie. She continues to minister to patients calmly, quietly, efficiently, but this is a crisis situation, a matter of saving lives. And she is well aware of that.
Sr. Florrie (Nightingale) Thomas – Mallu ministering angel
Overall, the stats show that emigration of women in Kerala, a figure of around 21 lakh, is largely concentrated in the nursing profession. An estimated 7,000 nursing graduates enter Kerala`s workforce every year.
In 2017, a World Health Organisation report stated that over 30 percent nurses who have trained in Kerala work in the US and UK, 15 percent in Australia, 12 percent in the Middle East. Family indigence, the desire to see the world, and the private hospital situation in India, which has not seen much standardisation of wages or amelioration of working conditions, also play their part in the migratory wave.
Dr Deepa Das, Senior Consultant, Pulmonology and Critical Care at a hospital in Bengaluru, says, simply and succinctly, that caring is in the Malayali nurse’s DNA. She stands out among her compatriots because of three traits: sound common sense, a firm sense of responsibility, and a genuine concern that goes beyond the hours of her shifts. They do have delicate egos and have to be handled with tact, says the doctor, but then that is part of the Malayali psyche, and well worth the effort.
Photo: Indranil Mukherjee / AFP
A nursing sister arrives at the King Edward Memorial (KEM) hospital in Mumbai.
An army doctor posted up north of the country, remarks that he is always struck by their remarkable resilience, their adaptability, and their exceptional managerial capabilities. And yes, there are any number of Sr. Florries in the Military Nursing Service, mainly because of the respect it imparts to them, as well as the healthy pay and perks. The doctor concludes by saying that fears are an inevitable part of their profession and COVID-19 has brought no new anxieties. Do they drag their feet? No, siree; in Armed Forces parlance, it is equivalent to a soldier deserting his post during an enemy attack.
Dr Latha Nair, a developmental pediatrician working in Brunei, has no qualms about saying that Malayali nurses are head and shoulders above others. Their level of understanding, their innate sense of discipline, their grasp of calculations of medications are all superior, and so the incidence of errors are significantly less, she says.
Dr KS James, Director and Senior Professor at the International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai, states that when he thinks of the Malayali nurse, Gandhiji`s quote “Where there is love, there is life,” comes to mind. Many thousands of Malayali nurses work in India and abroad, trying to save millions of lives in very adverse conditions, with meager pay, and it is not part of public discourse, says Dr James, underlining that this is the time to recognise their invaluable service to society, and to make sure their status is elevated to a ‘decent work’ category, as embraced by the ILO.
Photo: Instagram/shivanikochewad
An illustration by Shivani Kochewad depicting the contribution of nurses in the current pandemic.
Sr. Florrie is in now the thick of it, dealing with panicked COVID-19 patients, trying to keep them, as well as herself, calm. There is a spike in positive cases among healthcare professionals, the supply of proper PPE is hopelessly inadequate. When food fetches up, it is stale. Antsy landlords are ruthlessly kicking them out of rented accommodation.
When the nurses have to go into quarantine, they are put up in semi-squalid hotels, while it is ‘premium accommodation’ for doctors. They don’t get enough sleep. All of them are working at a frenzied pace, not really allowed their 14-day quarantine break before being deployed in the general wards. Medical safety protocols are being breached dangerously, and it is Sr. Florrie and Co who are bearing the brunt. Staff crunch, PPE crunch, work rotation crunch, it seems as if Sr. Florrie’s life is defined by crunches right now.
Setting the bar high
But the bar for the Malayali nurse is set very high and she wears her halo lightly. Sr. Florrie has heard Anna Soubry, a former British parliamentarian, in the BBC video that went viral (in March). “I think the compassion and care, that’s what makes Malayali nurses outstanding,” Ms Soubry had said. “If any crises arise, definitely there will be Malayali nurses as frontliners. In this situation as well, the majority proportion of Accident and Emergency team in London are nurses from Kerala. Unless there is a valid reason, these nurses do not back off.”
Daily conversations with her colleagues prove both encouraging and insightful. Sr. Baby tells her how it has always been her aim to create and spread goodwill around her workplace. This virus, the older woman says, will become a part of our life like all the other viruses, so we have to learn to cope with it.
Sr. Deena is even more frank. Developing a fear of this virus will be problematic for us nurses, she tells Florrie. It will make us hostile and fearful in our dealings with patients, and that is the last thing a good nurse should be. Anish, Florrie’s male nurse friend, is emphatic when he states that nursing is a noble job, a job with both value and worth.
Come out, girls, the Supervising Sister tells them now. They are commemorating us with flower petals showered from helicopters. Sr. Florrie exchanges a telling look with Molly, Mini and Sheeja. Do they really have time to go turn their faces up to falling petals? Then, she gives a pragmatic shrug, and all of them head outside.
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Sheila Kumar • May 12, 2020