“I am a multi-purpose health care worker. I have been in this field for the past 15 years. When the COVID-19 pandemic first hit the country, I knew we would need to collaborate effectively with the community and local government to help manage the Covid situation. However, we had never anticipated that our country would all go through such a crisis period considering the catastrophe of the first and second waves.

Even my family members, who were always supportive of my work otherwise, asked me, ‘Why am I taking the risk of being a mother of two young children during these critical times? What if you fall sick?’ I gave it a thought for a day but I realised that this is the time for me and my colleagues, being in the health care field, to step up. If not we, who else? We are chosen to give people the services during such situations, so I continued to work to date.

Being multi-purpose health care workers, we are supposed to provide primary promotive and curative health care for the public as per the areas allocated to us. It involves the dissemination and promotion of health education in various rural and sub rural areas. We also conduct health surveys and vaccination enquiries by visiting all the houses in the areas where are posted.

During our door-to-door surveys, there were few instances in the past where people had shut their doors on me in the name of social distancing, assuming that I am also a carrier of the virus. There had been a few situations when people warned us to keep away from their children. There is a lot of misconception among the public about the virus. But we try to educate them bringing more awareness about the current Covid situation and also about the new variants emerging in the world.

I just want to convey my message to everyone that we are taking all the necessary precautions like wearing the personal protective equipment (PPE) provided by the government authorities. People should not encourage a negative attitude towards on-field health care workers. We should all act together with a collective responsibility to fight this situation and take both doses of vaccine as a priority. My kind request to everyone is to follow the Covid 19 protocols and precautions as suggested by the Health Ministry, amidst the detection of the new Omicron variant.”