After losing her father to a tragic motorcycle accident, in which he was decapitated, Osiola Gilbert-Chilcott watched her mother go to work to support her seven children. Sometimes she even accompanied her mother to work, and it was during those visits that she was inspired to follow her mother’s footsteps and enter the nursing profession.
Her mother, Avril Culley, spent 22 years as a nursing assistant as she was unable to further her studies due to her commitment to her children but the drive and passion with which she worked during those years not only inspired Gilbert-Chilcott but all three of her daughters to become nurses.
Gilbert-Chilcott has been in the profession for the past seven years and always having the drive to reach the pinnacle of her profession, she was not satisfied with just becoming a registered nurse. She has recently completed a degree in nursing at the University of Guyana, graduating at the top of her class and winning awards for best research and best innovation project.
“I felt really blessed and overwhelmed. I was very happy. I know that hard work brings success and I really studied hard… and so there was like so much joy in my heart,” Gilbert-Chilcott said of her recent success, adding that she was not expecting to top her class.
Nurse Gilbert, as she is professionally known, told Stabroek Weekend that because of the inspiration from her mother she entered the science field at Central High School and that was where she started her journey to becoming a nurse. Right after school she enrolled in the Georgetown School of Nursing and graduated in 2014.
She recalled that at the age of ten she used to accompany her mother to the West Demerara Regional Hospital and admired the way she cared for the patients.
“I used to see how they would respect her and had so much love for her and they would address her as ‘nursie’ and say ‘nursie thank you’ for the care she provided for them,” she said of those days.
Entering into the profession, Gilbert-Chilcott said, she felt accomplished as that was her dream and over the years she has fallen in love with the profession.
“This is what I love, and I am also very passionate about it because I love to provide care. I love to just put a smile on every patient’s face and help them to feel comfortable, those that are bed ridden provide the basic care for them,” she said.
Though it is still a noble profession and nurses along with so many others have had to be frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, she lamented that she does not feel that it is a respected profession as it was years ago. But because she loves her job, she does not allow this to get to her and despite the challenges she still believes she can make a difference.
Difficulty
Gilbert-Chilcott said that her two years at the University of Guyana were not easy as to commit to her studies needed 100% effort, but because of her full-time job it was difficult. She was forced to request to work strictly night because of her classes during the day.
She reported to duty at 8.30 pm and left at 7.30 am and sometimes she showered and had her breakfast at work and then attended classes.
Prior to her studies she was stationed at the Accident and Emergency Unit, and now she is at the Women’s Medical Ward, but she hopes to specialize in one area. Accident and emergency is where she may want to return as it is always busy and there is so much to learn; it was because of her studies that she asked to be moved. “You learn more because there is so much that occur there,” she said of accident and emergency.
She had some setbacks during her studies as while she started in 2017 she was forced to withdraw from the programme just one month later because of illness. She was at home from work for months because of the illness.
Not one to sit around she said the following year when she started to feel better and even though she had to wait to reapply she started to read up on the material she already had to prepare herself. “I started to read because I was so determined to return to UG and put my best foot forward and do my best. So, I read and studied and in August 2018 I reapplied, and I was accepted,” she said.
When COVID-19 hit Guyana, Gilbert-Chilcott said, she knew she had to go work and take care of patients because she was a frontline worker. She never frowned on this because she knows that when one enters the profession one signs up for such. While it initially seemed frightening, she said, she was not consumed by fear, but prayed and ensured she stayed safe by taking all the necessary precautions because she loves nursing. She faced no form of discrimination.
During her studies, the innovation Gilbert-Chilcott came up with as part of the programme and for which she won a prize, was implementing a teaching programme at the medical clinic for patients with chronic illness. Every Tuesday and Wednesday she taught the patients attending the clinic about various illnesses. She used different methods which sometimes included videos and it was successful and well received by the patients. She hopes that the programme will be continued.
Gilbert-Chilcott’s mother is one of her biggest cheerleaders. And apart from her mother and two sisters, she said, her grandmother and her aunt were also nurses.
While she has every intention of specializing in her profession the 30-year-old said she may now put her studies on hold as she looks to start a family with her husband Roy, who she said has been her number one supporter, during the journey along with her friends Joyanne John and Allison Moore, both of whom who also earned nursing degrees, graduating with distinctions.
During the difficult two-year journey, she said, her husband, “never stopped believing in me and even [supported] by hugging away all my tears I shed…”
Gilbert-Chilcott advises young people who are thinking of joining the profession to ensure that being a nurse is really the career path they want to follow and once that is decided they should set high standards for themselves and stay connected to their studies.
“Always remember that hard work brings success. The profession is more than a lily white uniform and that is why they have to ensure that is what they want,” she said.
