As Reshma Mohandas walks away from the hospital, there is a partially hidden smile underneath the green mask on her face. Her colleagues – doctors and nurses and other staff of the Kottayam Medical College – are standing around her, cheering her. She has just been discharged, after being treated for COVID-19 at the Kottayam Medical College. Reshma, a staff nurse there, is the first health worker to have been infected with the disease in Kerala. And now she is all better to go home.
In a release sent by Kerala Health Minister KK Shailaja, it is said that Reshma is all ready to come back to work after 14 days in quarantine.
"There are all the facilities for the treatment of coronavirus in our hospitals. Many staff work there willingly. There is no need for any doubts or concern. Kerala will certainly overcome coronavirus," Reshma said, accordingly to the minister's release. Minister Shailaja had called her at the time she was discharged.
Reshma got the infection while she was nursing the oldest couple in the state to have got the coronavirus – 88-year-old Mariyamma and 93-year-old Thomas of Ranni, Pathanamthitta. They were admitted at the Kottayam Medical College and Reshma, who had duty from March 12 to 22 at the corona isolation ward, took care of the couple. She interacted closely with Thomas and Mariayamma who had along with COVID-19, other age-related illnesses. Minister Shailaja in a Facebook post says that Reshma looked after them like she would her own parents.
On March 23, when her duty turn at the isolation ward was over, she developed a small fever. Since she began showing symptoms of COVID-19, Reshma was immediately put on isolation ward and her samples sent for testing for coronavirus. The very next day it was confirmed that Reshma was infected, a news that worried the public.
However Reshma only suffered from small body aches and headache. She said that though there was some tension in the beginning she had a lot of support from her colleagues in the hospital and Minister Shailaja.
Reshma is from Thiruvangulam in Tripunithura. She lives with her husband Unnikrishnan and his mother.
In another piece of good news, the elderly couple that Reshma had looked after, Thomas and Mariyamma, have also been discharged, having recovered from the disease. With that, all the COVID-19 patients admitted at the Kottayam Medical College have been discharged.