Meet the Nightingales: From providing palliative care in remote villages to caring for colleagues during the pandemic, cancer patients

Indian Express

2 days ago

Leimapokpam Ranjita Devi and her husband used to routinely hop on a scooter at odd hours to provide palliative care to patients in remote Manipur villages. Banu M R cared for her sick colleagues in the NIMHANS hostel and guest house in Bengaluru to free up beds for patients with severe Covid-19 infection. As an oncology nurse, when the concept of palliative care was relatively unknown, Major-General Sheena P D has counselled numerous cancer patients and their families on accepting the diagnosis and getting treatment.
The trio was among the 15 nurses, auxiliary nurse midwives and women health workers from across India who were conferred the Florence Nightingale Award by President Droupadi Murmu on Friday. Of these awardees, four each are from the North-East and union territories, and two from the national capital.
Ranjita tells The Indian Express, 'One of my seniors asked me to apply for the award, but I barely had any photographs or videos that I was required to upload as part of my nomination. However, I got this award for training other nurses at the hospital.'
Having spent most of her nearly 20-year career at the Imphal-based Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences, Ranjita has many feathers in her cap over the years — from providing palliative care and training nurses in the red zone (areas in the hospital with severely ill Covid-19 patients) to setting up the protocol for the kidney transplant team at the institute and being a part of the rapid action team established after violence erupted in Manipur in May 2023.
'Since I live on campus, I frequently cover shifts for nurses who are unable to report for duty. I still remember being asked to come to the hospital on May 3 (2023). I ended up staying all night. People kept coming in with injuries the whole time,' she recalls.
Before all this, Ranjita was a part of a four-member team that provided door-to-door palliative care. 'I would receive a call if a patient removed their Ryle's tube (used for feeding through the nose) by mistake or if they were in too much pain. One by one, the others moved to different teams, but they would keep referring their patients to me,' she says, adding that though the programme has been discontinued, 'this is what I am most proud of'.
While Ranjita says she has never hesitated in taking care of her patients, she recalls a scare she got while seven months pregnant with her second child. 'I remember rushing to a hospital corridor at the end of my night shift to help a woman, who had started delivering her baby there. In the afternoon, I received a call and was informed that the woman was HIV positive. I had to take medicines to protect myself and my baby,' she says.
Like Ranjita, Banu too has never shied away from her duties as a nurse at NIMHANS, one of the country's foremost mental health hospitals.
Taking care of nearly 170 doctors, nurses, health workers and medical students during the pandemic, she says, 'earned me this award'.
Banu, who specialises in taking care of patients with psychiatric and neurological conditions, manages a rehabilitation centre at NIMHANS.
'There are several patients who do not have an acute condition, but their mental ailments don't quite not allow them to integrate into society. So our centre gives them structure. They work at the centre daily, from 8 am to 4 pm, making cakes, paper, printing things, etc. They also receive some remuneration for their work,' she says.
Banu is also the lead author of a study related to the pandemic, which found that the lockdown and unavailability of alcohol had resulted in fewer road accidents, though cases of domestic violence had gone up. For the study, Banu, who also worked at the hospital's neuro-emergency department during the pandemic, collected data on walk-ins with head injuries.
As part of her PhD thesis, she has created a protocol to reduce and stop the use of tobacco among people with schizophrenia. 'Though we were able to get only 25% of these people to stop using tobacco for a week, the use did dip significantly,' she says.
In her message to future nurses, she says, 'You don't have to be Mother Teresa, but if you become a nurse, you have to work hard with honesty and with humanity.'
Major-General Sheena, who has worked 10 years as a critical care nurse and as an oncology nurse for nearly two decades, agrees with Banu's message. 'It is a job that requires a lot of dedication, devotion and diligence,' she says.
Having trained as an oncology nurse at Mumbai's Tata Memorial Hospital and worked with cancer patients on multiple Army bases across the country, she says, 'When I started as an oncology nurse, not many were trained in the field. There was no concept of palliative care. I am happy that nurses have now started specialising in different fields, including cancer care.'
Before retiring from service in April, Major-General Sheena worked at the Army headquarters for 12 years, where her duties included inducting younger nurses to the service.
One of the biggest challenges for her over the years, she says, has been giving 'realistic' hope to her patients and their families. Other 'challenges', she says, included preparing her patients to deal with their therapies, and counselling families on how to support and care for cancer patients.
Anonna Dutt is a Principal Correspondent who writes primarily on health at the Indian Express. She reports on myriad topics ranging from the growing burden of non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and hypertension to the problems with pervasive infectious conditions. She reported on the government's management of the Covid-19 pandemic and closely followed the vaccination programme.
Her stories have resulted in the city government investing in high-end tests for the poor and acknowledging errors in their official reports.
Dutt also takes a keen interest in the country's space programme and has written on key missions like Chandrayaan 2 and 3, Aditya L1, and Gaganyaan.
She was among the first batch of eleven media fellows with RBM Partnership to End Malaria. She was also selected to participate in the short-term programme on early childhood reporting at Columbia University's Dart Centre. Dutt has a Bachelor's Degree from the Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication, Pune and a PG Diploma from the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai. She started her reporting career with the Hindustan Times.
When not at work, she tries to appease the Duolingo owl with her French skills and sometimes takes to the dance floor. ... Read More