— says young volunteer assisting healthcare workers

DESPITE having to put their lives on the line, working long hours away from their families during the fight to slow the spread of the dreaded coronavirus, nurses and other healthcare workers are being stigmatised and discriminated against by the general public during the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically by vehicle operators.

Keoma Pearson, a schoolteacher, is disturbed by this situation and is working to fix the problem. She is using her own personal vehicle to transport nurses to and from work during their night shift in Region Three.

Pearson, who spoke to the Guyana Chronicle, stated that she saw how nurses and other healthcare workers were being treated by public vehicle operators and decided to render her assistance in the little way that she can.
“They needed to get home and I could have helped. It didn’t make sense to look at who wasn’t doing what,” she stated.

However, Pearson noted that any discriminatory act against nurses and other health workers should be condemned, especially during this troubling time as they are doing their absolute best to combat COVID-19.

The young woman in an appeal to public vehicle operators stated, “You need them just as they need you; your inability to show empathy is also a virus in itself.”
She added that persons should respect and appreciate health workers, especially during the epidemic, since they will need all the encouragement and support to battle the deadly virus.

“The very people we are turning away are the very people you will run to if this befalls you. Maybe they should pick and choose too. I feel safer around the nurses … so many careless people who just do not care. We walk among them so freely and carelessly, but you’re afraid of the ones most alert and aware of what this all means,” Pearson stated.

DISCRIMINATION
Additionally, the manager/Head of Strategic Planning and Communication at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC), Chelauna Providence, in addressing a number of complaints had stated, “We have been receiving reports from nurses and doctors that taxi services have refused to pick them up and bring them to work; supermarkets have asked them to leave when they are in uniform or have their badges on. We basically want to let the public know that nurses especially, are frontline workers when it comes to responding to COVID-19.”

Providence further stated that nurses are constantly working overtime to slow the spread of COVID-19 in Guyana and deserve to be treated with respect during this critical period. “Our nurses and our doctors are continuously preparing for any possible situation in Guyana and they have been working hard and overtime to do so, so we want people to extend the same courtesies that they would to everyone else… additionally, people should be a bit more accommodating to healthcare workers, because if you should get sick or if you should need healthcare, the healthcare workers are going to be the ones to take care of you,” she stated.

Additionally, Providence stated that the stigma that is being displayed is centred on the lack of knowledge and persons should educate themselves and adhere to the precautionary measures set out by the health system.

“With the COVID-19, the threat is basically to anyone, it’s not just doctors and nurses that people need to be concerned about and so we also want to reinforce that people should take the necessary precautions as they are advised by the health authorities, practise their handwashing, social distancing, respiratory etiquette,” she said.