A nurse’s motherly story from the days of her separation from her family / Sometimes in the middle of playing with my son, I fall asleep from exhaustion!
Life Group; Zeinab Nadali:We go to Baqiyatallah Hospital and pass those long corridors, we pass by people who each took a pile of test papers. We go ahead and pass by those who are anxious about Waiting chairs are waiting to hear good news from their loved ones. As we enter one of the wards, a nurse recommends that we put another mask on our mask. The nurses were constantly moving around in the patients’ rooms, and from where we stood we could easily hear the voices of the patients. Among those tired faces, I’m looking for someone I can talk to for a few minutes. Finally, one of the nurses comes and sits at the nursing station. I see the opportunity and make my request. He smiles and accepts. He invites me to another room, which seems to be their rest room. I sit on a chair and the nurse sits facing me and I start talking.
Introduce yourself first
I am Masoumeh Pourdasht, a nurse in Corona, Baqiyatallah Hospital. I am married and have two children. I chose nursing because of my strong interest in helping others since I was a child. I joined the corona section.
Tell the nursing mothers that in addition to the difficulty of working in Corona, their responsibilities have doubled. How do you manage your home and family?
“Naturally, managing the home and the family is a very difficult responsibility, and it is doubly difficult for working women, especially since the conditions of the corona have increased and we can not get help from anyone in this situation,” she said. Young children can no longer be sent to kindergartens, schools have become virtual, and in fact we have three jobs: housekeeping, hospital work and nursing, and we have to be a teacher for our children, because education has become virtual and Many of the educational tasks are the responsibility of us parents. It’s really hard to manage all this with the fatigue of being a nurse.
Our job is such that in addition to fatigue, insomnia is added to it. A working woman who works from morning to evening gets tired, but a nurse also suffers from insomnia due to night shifts. You, as a nurse who has both hard working conditions and does not sleep through the night until morning, can not rest when you go home.
Certainly your child does not accept that you are tired or sleepy and likes to play and spend time with him like all mothers and expects that because you were not at home one night, you will be with him more the day you are and you have not been for 18 hours. To compensate. You will no longer have the opportunity to rest in such situations. It has happened that we have forgotten ourselves and we are just trying to do our duties properly. I do my best to be a good mother at home and to take good care of the sick in the hospital.
How do your children react to your job?
Children have different reactions according to their age, for example, when my son was a baby, when I came back from the night shift, he would not leave my arms at all for two hours, and the older he got, the better. Even though my son is 6 years old, he keeps asking me why do you have a nursing job? Why not stay home at night? Or why you should go to work at all. In fact, the children became anxious about separation. My first son is 18 years old, but every time he comes home and sees that I am, he thanks God. When I ask him why, he says that I am really upset because of the days when you are not. Or every morning when he goes to school, he asks me, “Mom, can I go home?” This means that my shifts have become an important concern in the minds of my children.
As a mother, how much time do you spend with your sons?
Very; I always tried to play my role of mother well in the first stage. For example, there were days when I could not stand on my feet due to fatigue, but my son asked me to play football with him. I remember once when my first son was little, after a night of work, he asked me to play basketball together. I waited for my son to stand up, but as soon as I closed my eyes, I fell asleep from exhaustion in the same state. They ask are you tired mom? Can we still play? Aren’t you tired? I mean, they always think that their mother is tired and they are harassing her, but I do not like them to feel that way when I play with them. With all my tiredness, I want to spend time with them so that they can relax during that time. That’s why I try to go for walks with the kids, we race at home and we go for a walk and a bike ride together.
How much does your spouse accompany you on this path?
Honestly, my wife did not agree with my job because of the hardships of my job, but because of her human aspect, she accompanies me, especially in these circumstances, the corona and the reward of the hereafter. For example, the days when I am on shift are the responsibility of the children with my wife and she comes to work almost two days a week earlier so that I can reach my shift. By playing and walking with the children, he tries to satisfy my son so that I can come to work.
His cell phone rings. His little boy has made a video call to him. He apologizes and answers the phone. He promises to come back soon and ends the call. I ask, what are you doing with these nostalgias?
My son really takes my excuse, especially lately, he wants me to be with him more. This is a problem for all working mothers, and of course in the corona situation, the situation has become more difficult for the family of the medical staff. He constantly makes video calls and asks when I will be back. He is right, he can not understand the working conditions and night shifts. I try to calm him down and his father entertains him with fun and games so that I can return home.
Of course, these nostalgias are two-sided, for example, there were days when I had to come to work and I was thinking about my child all the time. I remember once my son had a high fever due to a severe allergy and I could not stand by him and take care of my son. And my mind was on him all the time I was at work. I am a nurse, but due to my difficult circumstances, I can not even take care of my son when he gets sick. This is a big problem in our job that all my colleagues experienced.
Some of the nostalgia is also related to the occasions of the year, such as Yalda night, Nowruz, the moment of New Year delivery and the moments when the whole family gathers together.
Tell us about the hard days of Corona when you had to be away from your family.
The first days were really difficult, we did not know the disease and we did not know the conditions of its transmission. It was a difficult situation for us small children, because the children did not really realize that they were not close to me and that I could not hug them. What does that mean? The children could not understand. It was very difficult to get away from the family. Some colleagues stayed in the hospital for a month and did not go home. But I could not go home. I would go and put on a mask and stay away from all my family members. My son was very upset at that time and kept saying, “Mom, why are you doing this?” Why did you become like this? He would come to me and when I was away he would be upset, he would think I did not like him and he would cry all the time and make excuses. But we had no choice but he was crying and I could not hold him in my arms and comfort him. I was afraid to be a carrier and make my son, who is very dear to me, sick with my own hands. But little by little, I tried to teach the children and they dealt with it more easily.
Tell us about your working conditions in those days? You certainly suffered a lot of mental and physical stress.
Well, this is the coronary section of pregnant mothers, and our narratives are even more bitter here than in the days of Corona. Made it harder for us at the time of Corona. The last mother who died here had a 1-year-old child and a baby who was born the same day. Every time I remember, I am still sad and think about how children live without a mother. Of course, now the situation is much better and with the vaccination that was done, fortunately, the number of deaths has decreased a lot.
Despite all the difficulties in your job, what has kept you committed to this profession?
Serving the people and the reward of nursing in the hereafter has caused this. But due to the difficult conditions during this period, some nurses migrated to other countries. Unfortunately, the salaries of nurses are not commensurate with the difficulty of their work. These are the problems of the nursing community. Colleagues who emigrated tell other countries about their good conditions, but for me it is important to be in my homeland and to serve my compatriots. I do not like to live in exile and far from my homeland. I studied here and grew up here and I want to serve my compatriots.
She is worried about the patients and she is not paying attention to me. I understand her concern and try to finish the conversation as soon as possible. ?
Yes, these heart connections that have been created, but can not be said alone and definitely. I have always asked Hazrat Zainab to be our intercessor in the hereafter thanks to their name and birthday, and all our hopes are for her hereafter. On the other hand, we see the goodness and blessings of this work in our personal lives, and it is because of the good prayers of the patients and also Hazrat Zeinab that we set our example.
In the end, if you have something to say, say it
Congratulations on Nursing Day to all my hard-working colleagues. Nurses are really the ones who always work hard without any understanding from any of them. Neither the society, nor the officials, nor the families, no one can understand our situation. The moment when the patient is in a bad condition and we have to do several things at the same time under special circumstances and under a very heavy pressure, it is really hard work. I kiss the hands of all my colleagues for their service to the people and I congratulate them on this day and I hope they are always healthy and can make the best use of the hours they spend with their families, if they are tired.
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