Vitals:
Home City – Karachi, Pakistan
Current Country – UAE
Profession – Nurse
Education – BScN, AKU School of Nursing (AKUSON) 2008
Current Role:
Currently, I am working as Unit Manager for a critical care unit in a private hospital in the UAE. Like other hospitals, we have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. As a manager, my goal is to ensure that the wards are ready to accommodate patients, and that my staff are motivated and well equipped to care for them. We started facing multiple challenges like shortages of PPE, isolation rooms, and nursing staff. Staff sick leaves started increasing, staff on leaves outside the country were not able to come back, pregnant staff were moved out of the schedules to prevent their exposure, and so on. These challenges made me realize that there is a hidden talent in everyone which only blooms in these situations when we feel there is no way out.
So I jumped into the pool of challenges and kept my faith strong with high hopes. I talked with all my staff in a positive manner and let them know that there will be a time soon when we will all celebrate our achievements so we have to remain positive all the time. Secondly, we managed to creatively make PPE in hospital with the help of our staff. We are still struggling with the staff shortages and motivating nurses from the community to join as locum nurses.
Advice:
I want to give the message to my community to not panic as stress lowers immunity, and COVID-19 is all about immunity. Also, this is a time when we need to start living healthy lives and take time to explore each of our hidden talents.
