Meet Anesia Persaud: A physiotherapist working with COVID-19 patients

IT was the COVID-19 deaths that she encountered on the job that especially took a toll on Physiotherapist Anesia Persaud. Working with the patients – as scary as it was to her initially – was nothing compared to receiving a call that the person she’d develop a friendship with over many weeks and had tried to help was gone.

Anesia dealt with over 1,000 COVID-19 patients during her stint between ‘Georgetown Hospital’ and the ‘COVID ICU’ at Liliendaal, East Coast Demerara, but after counting this many, she lost track of the number of persons with the disease that she’s been helping to rehabilitate over the past few months.

Although scared at the thought of having to work in an environment where she could easily pick up the disease, Anesia was bold enough to actually volunteer to work with COVID patients. “I was terrified at first but weirdly excited about it because it was something brand new. I was more interested than scared and so I volunteered to go,” she recalled during an interview with Pepperpot last Friday.

What the 25-year-old didn’t know at the time was the devastating impact that each COVID-19 death would have on her personally. Perhaps it was because some of her patients who seemed to be recovering well on one day died on the next.

Six persons who were helped by Anesia died, and each time, Anesia felt the same pain of loss and hopelessness. “I felt it because I worked with them for weeks and got to know them and they seemed to be doing so well but then they just turn over and die the next day,” she expressed.

Becoming overwhelmed, she would leave the room and walk around the hospital for a bit, or she would go home and cry it out. “Those were the roughest times,” she said. Thankfully, her family, friends, and her dog were a big help.

But dealing with this loss was surely not the only challenge on the job. Simply gearing up to be in the environment was an uphill task. “Because it is so contagious in the ICU, I had to be suited up from head to toe with double and triple gloves and masks. At times it was hard to breathe under those suits,” she explained.

Furthermore, with some of the patients under sedation or too weak to move, Anesia would in some cases have to help move them.

She also had to take multiple showers during the day and had to deal with the patients when they woke up from sedation. “I tried to be very patient and understanding; I understood that they are in physical pain and in an environment they know nothing about it. They were scared, some of them very young, and even kids. I try to sympathise and help,” she said.

Anesia understands that after contracting COVID-19, physiotherapy becomes essential as it entails working with patients on overall breathing and oxygen consumption. So she makes it a point to remain patient and kind to her patients. And it is not usually hard for her to be this way because she absolutely loves her job. “There are a lot of interesting cases; figuring out what’s wrong and looking for things that are being overlooked. Everything is so hectic at hospitals so when you talk to your therapist, you become friends. We work on their minds and bodies to help them get back to a normal life.”

Anesia also derives much satisfaction from seeing the good results that come from simple things that are natural, as opposed to drinking lots of tablets and having to endure many side effects.
“It works so fast and it’s so efficient; to see how a little exercise changes everything.  Once I see them get up and walk again, I am the happiest person. The most rewarding part of my job is to see people get up and go back out there,” Anesia expressed.

Even though going on a medical scholarship to Tbilisi State Medical University in Georgia to study medicine, Anesia found her real passion when she did a course on rehabilitation. So after two years at the university, she decided to spend the next four years doing Physical Medicine and Rehabilitative Therapy for which she gained a Degree. She plans to soon pursue her ‘Masters’ in sports medicine as her goal is to work with athletes.

Anesia’s biggest motivation to join the medical field is her dad, former Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Shamdeo Persaud. Very soon, the Charity Hospital will be fortunate enough to benefit from Anesia’s services as she will be posted there for one year.