When one drives up to the entrance of the emergency unit of the Georgetown Public Hospital with a patient who cannot walk, it is not the doctor or the nurse they first look to but a group of persons who are in the background and whose roles are vital to the everyday operations of the hospital.
These frontline workers are referred to as attendants and their services sometimes go unnoticed. But when these men and women carefully remove a patient from a stretcher or utter simple words of assurance as they set them up in the wheelchair, it does not only comfort the patients but also their relatives who might be at their most vulnerable at that point.
Twenty-one-year-old Narissa Layne is one such attendant and seems the embodiment of a consummate professional. She not only takes her work seriously but actually loves what she does.
Layne, who started her job as an attendant employed with the company Cleaners R Us in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, does not shy away from the job she started a few months ago and is proud that she is not only gainfully employed but that she is helping people.
“Some persons would come back and look for me and thank me for how I helped them and that for me is the best thing. It really makes me feel happy,” she told Stabroek Weekend in a recent interview.
She shared that a friend informed her about the job and told her that she should give it try. “So, I decided to take the opportunity and here am I today,” she said. Her eyes lit up, indicating that she was flashing a bright smile behind her mask.
Since taking up the job in April, Layne said, she found that safety measures have been put in place and everyone has been cooperative, so she has no fear of COVID-19. She works the 7 am to 3 pm shift and it was she who chose to be an attendant instead of a cleaner or sanitizer, the two other jobs offered by the company contracted by the hospital.
“I choose attendant because I know I am capable with being with patients, assisting them. I know when it comes to dealing with the patient you have to be prepared and ready, especially with the COVID-19 going around. You have to ensure that your shoes is covered, you have your gloves, your masks and the goggles,” the young woman said.
Layne was also high in praise for the doctors at the hospital, whom, she said, advised them how to deal with patients, especially those who are COVID-19 positive, for which she is very grateful.
She is not stationed at a specific ward in the hospital and many times she responds to calls for assistance in the Emergency Room (ER) and on a normal day she can deal with 10 or more patients.
“You can be called at any time, so you have to be all up and ready to get the task done…,” she said.
Being called to the ER to assist a patient who may have been shot or in an accident can be somewhat overwhelming. “It can get you a little confused when you see all that blood and then you don’t want to cause more injury to the patient. I does try to be prepared and just up and ready,” she related.
In the months she has been working she has never had any unsavory experiences with patients nor their family members.
“They would mostly thank me for what I have done… I would even check on the patients now and then; like if I take them in now I would give them a little time and then I would go back and check on them to see if they okay,” she said.
Because of the COVID-19 measures implemented at the hospital, relatives are not allowed to remain in the ER with their patients and Layne said some would ask her just to keep an eye on their loved ones.
She does not only deal with ER patients. At times she is called to a ward to take a patient for a procedure elsewhere in the hospital, but Layne said she does not get tired as she enjoys helping people.
“What I like most about this job is that you get to experience things you didn’t before, like going to the mortuary, dealing with patients who can’t move and you have to lift them and just helping,” she said.
Layne strikes up conversations with patients, especially those she has to take from the ward to another location in the hospital.
“I would ask them if they taking their medication. If they ever went in hospital before and if their relatives coming to check on them and things like that and they respond back to me and I would get to learn more about them and what they going through,” she said.
At times she goes home very sad when she encounters very ill patients. “I would sometimes sit and think about them and wonder what happen to them,” she added. There were a few COVID-19 patients she dealt with but because of the measures in place she was unclear of their identities. But when she reads about a patient dying at GPH she wonders if it was the man or woman she may have assisted.
“I felt sorry for them because I know it was between life and death and I would think if they would survive, if they would make it…,” she said sadly.
Not afraid
Even though Layne got the call for the job after coronavirus became a reality in Guyana, she said she was not afraid and was ready to face the task ahead. “I did not know what it looked like because you just hearing about the symptoms and so and it was not scary for me…,” she explained.
However, it was different for her relatives as Layne is the baby of the family and her parents were not keen on the last of their three children going to work at the hospital because of the coronavirus. They encouraged her to delay taking up the job until after the virus is no longer in Guyana, but she convinced them that she would take the precautions to ensure that she is safe at all times.
They were still in doubt, but they allowed her to make her own decision. Prior to the hospital she worked in a restaurant and in clothing store and also did some videography after completing secondary school.
And now her parents eagerly await her arrival home to hear all about her day. Sometimes her stories are funny, and they would go into fits of laughter. Those are the best moments for the young Layne.
“They already know who I am. They know I am not a problem person or a person who like confusion. I am friendly and jovial and always look to get people to [talk]…so they know the patients would talk to me and they would want to hear what I do and how I react,” she said, laughing a little.
And her parents tell her that they are proud of her.
“They say it a lot, almost every day,” Layne said adding that she is also proud of herself. To those who might want to look down on what she does the young attendant said she would only respond with, “Somebody has to do it”.
Many women are employed with the company and she sees it as giving those women who may have fallen on hard times, who want to go back to school or had an unplanned pregnancy, a second chance.
“I see it as a second chance because at least they make a step moving forward from one situation, so this indeed a second-chance job,” she said.
“This is just to assist me to get me to where I want to be,” she said of her current job but while she is doing it she would be the best at it.
She hopes to one day become a businesswoman but first wants to re-sit Mathematics and English and has already put plans in train to do so through a private institution.
Layne is thankful for her second chance given by Cleaners R Us and specifically mentioned the company’s Chief Executive Officer Tyrone Anthony as well as the captain of the company’s COVID team and operational manager Dexter Williams.
“I also want to thank the nurses, the doctors for being cooperative with us the frontline attendants when it comes to dealing with patients, whether they are COVID-19 positive or not,” she said.
