Abdullah Al Kafi asked the driver of the local bus he was travelling by to drop him in front of Kurmitola General Hospital like every other day.
However, something unexpected happened on that day. A passenger from the back yelled out at the bus conductor at the top of his voice.
“Why did you take a Kurmitola hospital staff on this bus?”
The rest of the passengers in the bus gave the conductor a death stare as if he did something wrong.
Kafi got off from the bus silently, entered his workplace, put on the protective gear, and went ahead to attend Covid-19 patients at the ICU.
Kafi, 28, is a senior staff nurse at Kurmitola General Hospital, a hospital designated for Covid-19 patients.
He has been caring for Covid patients since the pandemic hit.
“I was scared and excited at the same time when I heard that I will be attending Covid-19 patients. I was scared because the virus brought the whole world to its knees and excited because I will be able to do my part to fight off this virus,” Kafi told Dhaka Tribune.
Like everybody else, Kafi did not want the virus to infect his family.
He sent his mother and younger sister to his hometown while his wife, who is also a nurse by profession, stayed with him in Dhaka.
There was a major overhaul in Kafi’s daily routine as a nurse as soon as the pandemic hit.
Overburdened with work, quarantining for 14 days and then getting back to work, staying at a hotel as his movement came under restrictions when on duty-- Kafi described his journey as a rollercoaster ride.
Kafi wanted to be a journalist but could not get a spot in any journalism school. Later, he thought he would pursue medicine but did not get a spot in medical colleges either. Then, he thought he would go for nursing school because this profession would allow him to work in a hospital and care for people.
Hailing from Rangpur, he got admitted to the Prime Nursing College in his home town in 2010. He started working at Kurmitola General Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in 2018.
Throughout the pandemic, he experienced both highs and lows emotionally over the past one year.
“There was this 18-year-old man admitted to the Covid ICU. His health condition deteriorated in a few days and his mother was frantically running around to manage blood and medicines,” he told Dhaka Tribune.
The patient expired within a few days. Kafi is not new to announcing the death of a patient to their loved ones but, this incident took a heavy toll on him emotionally.
“My eyes welled up. I told my colleagues that I will not be able to tell his mother that her only child is no more in this world. It was extremely difficult to accept that this deadly virus has taken down many young lives,” he said.
Even though Kafi’s work has been gruelling since the pandemic hit, there are moments that keep him up and going every day.
“There were many people who held my hand and said: ‘Son, you are my family now.’ I did everything that a caregiver could do for a critical patient as no attendance was allowed for Covid-19 patients,” he added.
From brushing their teeth to cleaning them after they answered to their nature’s call, Kafi was always there for his patients.
Kafi earns around Tk28,000 per month and most of the amount gets spent on paying rent. On top of that, he has family responsibilities, which includes paying for his sister’s education.
“I live in a two room flat in Khilkhet. I cannot just rent a cheaper place in a neighbourhood that does not match my lifestyle. I do not really get to save up anything at the end of each month,” he told Dhaka Tribune.
Kafi said he is still waiting for the stimulus package that is to be provided for frontline nurses, as per government announcement
The pandemic gave Kafi a new perspective on his profession. Now, he wants to pursue higher education in nursing to become a more capable healthcare worker. He also wants to prove that nursing is not just a profession for women.
“Many of my relatives and people around me used to taunt me saying nursing is a profession for women. I should not be in this profession because I am a man,” he said.
However, in the last one year, the world around Kafi has changed much.
Some were unappreciative of his work and treated him as if he will infect everyone around him with Covid-19 virus.
However, there were some who treated him as a hero for risking his life to attend Covid patients.
Every day when he removes his personal protective gear after his shift ends, he finds pressure marks on his skin from the PPEs, messy hair and weary eyes, but the respect he gets from his patients and others keeps him motivated and thankful to his profession.
