Delivering For Patient Zero, A Midwife’s COVID-19 Story

President of the Nurses Association of Jamaica (NAJ) Patsy Edwards-Henry got her proverbial baptism by fire when COVID-19 first reached the island in March 2020, by virtue of her association with Patient Zero.

The Registered Nurse, Registered Midwife and Departmental Nurse Manager at the Victoria Jubilee Hospital (VJH) served on the front lines with her staff in dealing with the cases as they came in.

She experienced first-hand the discrimination that many persons complained of, even in places where she did not expect it. Mrs. Edwards-Henry tells JIS News that her response to COVID-19 began on March 10, 2020, the day when the country’s first COVID-19 infection was announced.

This, she said, was because patient zero was a close associate of hers and that the day the case was announced, a relative of the patient had been admitted at VJH to deliver a baby.

“Earlier in the day, before it was announced, I had assisted the patient in the admission process, I’d taken her to the ward, made sure she was comfortable, and got her settled in and then about two hours later, it was announced. I was called in a frenzy saying I was a person of interest, because I was now in contact with persons who had been exposed, so my baptism started as early as that,” she says.

She points out that she had to step in when others were too fearful to do so, and this included participating in the delivery of the baby by Caesarean section. She adds that it was a nurse who brought the patient into the hospital because the porters were fearful.

“Even to get her surgery done was a challenge; it was the consultants who ended up doing the anesthesia and the surgery, and it was I, who had not worked in theatre for years, who received the baby,” the registered midwife notes.

She highlights that by this time, the patient’s closest relatives – including her husband, her mother and her sister – were now in quarantine, and that she became the person who had to console her throughout the process.

Mrs. Edwards-Henry says that although she was able to clear up the belief that she had been exposed to Patient Zero, her ostracism nightmare was just beginning.

The Departmental Nurse Manager explains that she lives on the outskirts of Eight Miles, Bull Bay, which was placed under quarantine shortly after Patient Zero was identified.

“The first day I turned up to work during quarantine, I was ostracised. I was asked if I was supposed to be here and why was I here. People knew where I lived and I tried to explain [to no avail] that I lived outside of the boundaries of the quarantine area,” the NAJ President recalls.

She adds that this did very little to appease her colleagues, as many were dealing with the novelty of the little-known disease, and because of their fears she was relegated to working from the office, as her colleagues refused to do ward rounds with her.

The fear she says was exacerbated after a close colleague tested positive, following which she was tested and sent home to quarantine.

“I waited nine days to get my results, and those were the longest nine days of my life,” she recalls. Fortunately for her, the test result came back negative.

Mrs. Edwards-Henry explains that as Departmental Nurse Manager, she manages specific wards and that on the afternoon shift, the night shift and on the weekends, she manages the hospital. At VJH, she points out, that means supervision of approximately 200 staff, which she says was a difficult feat in the first three months after COVID first entered the island.

“We had to retrofit a number of the areas to COVID areas, and the truth is that we were unprepared for what we were to encounter. When we got our first contact of a confirmed case, who eventually tested negative, we had to figure out how to deal with the case; where to put suspected cases, what entrance they would use, how we would triage them, how we would quarantine them and how we would isolate them,” the Departmental Nurse Manager recalls.

“Some staff blatantly refused to work in the COVID areas. Some came and said they had children, parents, grandparents, comorbidities. Persons were frightened, so those of us who were in charge had to do a lot of filling in, which meant much longer hours. It eventually got easier as persons became more aware, and with our sensitisation programmes, persons became more comfortable,” Mrs. Edwards-Henry says.

After being on the battlefield at Victoria Jubilee Hospital for about six months into the pandemic, Mrs. Edwards-Henry would begin a new journey that saw her moving from supervising 200 people to leading the entire nursing cohort across the island, as she was elected President of the Nurses Association of Jamaica in October 2020.

Her new responsibility, she says, did not make the fight any less challenging.

“I was now in a position where the entire nursing cadre across the country was looking to me for guidance. Initially, I wondered what to tell the nurses, how to mobilise them to ensure that we respond adequately to this pandemic,” the NAJ President says.

She explains that in January 2021, when the vaccine conversation was on in earnest, she had to spearhead education campaigns for the nurses and conduct surveys, as there was some pushback in the initial stages.

The Association also collaborated with the Ministry of Health and Wellness on the vaccination rollout.

“NAJ was one of the recruiters, so I was responsible for sending information to the nurses, getting them onto the sensitisation platforms and having them sign up to participate in the blitz exercises.

The NAJ President says that she took the vaccine on the first day and participated in vaccination blitz exercises from the beginning.

“I was out there with the nurses on the front line, doing policy as president, but also making sure that I was on the front end because the core of nursing is care. Nurses turned up from all walks of life to assist with the blitz – nurses who work in the private sector, nurses who work in policy, nurse entrepreneurs and school nurses – to ensure that the population was vaccinated,” Mrs. Edwards-Henry highlights as she reflects on the period.

The dedicated healthcare worker says that she didn’t choose nursing, but rather it chose her. It was not her first career choice.

“Dance was my first love, but I was pushed as a young lady by my family to go to college, so I applied to do general nursing at the Kingston School of Nursing. I was, however, sent to the Cornwall School of Midwifery, so I started my career as a midwife.

“When I started the course, I never even knew what I was getting into, but I eventually fell in love with the profession and nursing is now my passion,” the NAJ President chuckles.

Mrs. Edwards-Henry is one of Jamaica’s healthcare workers who is being recognised during July, which has been declared Healthcare Workers Appreciation Month.