In the wee hours of August 13, a 38-year-old woman was taken from her home in the border town of Uppala in Kerala’s Kasaragod to the government general hospital. She was nine months pregnant and soon to have a baby. But the mother-to-be turned positive for the coronavirus, and it wouldn’t do for her to continue treatment at the GH in Kasargod. She had to be taken to the Pariyaram Medical College Hospital in Kannur, a 45-minute trip, if no other roadblocks were present on the way. As it happened, it was on that journey in a Kanivu 108 ambulance, with the aid of three health workers, that the woman gave birth to her fourth baby, the first son after three girls.
Both mother and baby are fine, admitted at the Pariyaram MCH, thanks to the work of two emergency management technicians and the ambulance pilot sent with the ambulance. Sreeja, Robin Joseph and Anand John have turned heroes in that short duration, doing their best in helping bring new life and saving another.
“There are 14 Kanivu 108 ambulances plying in Kasargod, out of which 11 are on COVID-19 duty. I work in one of them, which runs on the Uduma route. The ambulance assigned to take the pregnant woman to Pariyaram was another that ran in a neighbouring route. It only had male nurses. But both the woman and her doctor had insisted on a female nurse to accompany her. So I joined them, after getting a call at 7.23 am,” Sreeja says, having noted precise timings through the journey.
They reached the GH within three minutes of the call and left for Pariyaram at 7.40 after the necessary checks. “It will take 45 minutes to reach Pariyaram if we are not held up at a railway gate crossing on the way. But on the way, the woman began to go through a lot of (labour) pain and we realised the delivery had to be done right away. I asked the pilot (driver) to stop the ambulance on the side,” Sreeja says.
This had caused some inconvenience to other commuters which were taken care of by Anand John. The male nurse Robin had sat in front of the vehicle, but came back and offered support from outside the ambulance for the delivery. Sreeja didn’t have to make a single call. She knew what to do. “I have done my general nursing course and before beginning work on 108 ambulances, we had special training for emergency duties,” she says.
Once the baby was delivered, she had Robin help her with taking care of the infant, while she attended to the mother. “The delivery,” notes the ever-precise Sreeja, “was at 8.32 am. Ten minutes of taking care of mother and baby and the ambulance was on its way again. We reached Pariyaram by 8.55 am.”
Sreeja was wearing her Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) kit while helping deliver the baby, but even so, had to go into quarantine immediately, having tended to a pregnant woman who was positive for the coronavirus.
“I am just happy the mother and the baby are doing alright,” she says, in an emotional voice.