When a nurse is a goddess of compassion

The eighteen-year-old nervously entered the interview room with some edginess. Her dream of wearing the white sari that her elder sister, a nurse, would wear for duty every morning was right within her reach now and yet seemed far away. The question put to her was, “Who is the Daya ni Devi (Goddess of Compassion) in this profession?” Inspiring stories she had heard about Florence Nightingale from her elder sister popped up in her mind and she got that right. Decades later, as Jayshreeben Gopalbhai Chavda stood before the President of India, accepting the Florence Nightingale award conferred on her, she remembered that auspicious day, with gratitude, when she cracked her interview.

Posted in a health sub-centre in Kachch district, the local villagers and women did not have much trust in this chit-of- a-girl and preferred the traditional Dayans. She tried hard to win their confidence, until one day the wife of the sarpanch of the village had a bad complication following her delivery. Jayshree was called in. With alacrity, she administered intra-venous fluids, injected her with Mag Sulphate and Oxytocin to prevent seizure and control the bleeding, and immediately rushed her to the next higher facility for treatment. This yielded good results, the mother and baby survived. That was a turning point for the young nurse. The villagers’ faith in the young nurse grew.

Soon, as word of her good work spread, pregnant women from villages and towns that were 50 to 60 kms from her sub-centre, too, started trusting her for childbirth and she delivered many babies. With some genuine, maternal pride she says that she has delivered almost all the young people and children of the villages in the vicinity!

All parents, especially mothers, reading this column will agree that the attitude of the doctor or nurse attending to you during the delivery makes or breaks your confidence. Worldwide, many people prefer competent midwives, who are available on a 24x7 basis. They also put the mother-to-be at ease with their friendly demeanour, engaging gossip and stories! A stress-less or at least less-stressed delivery is something to die for!

Jayshreeben’s joyful journey of delivering babies for scores of women went smoothly, till a major setback two decades ago. While taking a full-term pregnant woman with complications in an emergency to the First Referral Unit (FRU, they met with a fatal accident. The child did not survive, the mother survived and Jayshreeben sustained very serious injuries. Bedridden and in great pain, she almost lost hope that she would be back on her feet and engage in her favourite metier of welcoming young bundles of life into the world. But, a young mother’s stubborn insistence that she would only have her baby delivered by Jayshreeben, left no option. The bandaged nurse with stitches dragged herself to the labour table. She performed the labour she loved, suppressing her own terrible physical pain. She truly graduated to being the Goddess of Compassion that day.

While her work was, itself, a great reward for her, she was selected for the Florence Nightingale award in 2015. Within months, she had yet another terrible setback. She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. The numerous chemotherapy sessions were topped with her own therapy of delivering babies which gave her great joy and healed her too.

May 12 was ‘World Nursing Day’. As I spoke to Jayashreeben to wish her, she was delivering four babies till late into the mid-night, taking her total deliveries to a whopping 9,561! Let’s hope the life story of Jayshreeben inspires each one of us to perform our duty as best as we can. Let us congratulate yet another Florence Nightingale awardee from Gujarat this year, brother nurse Kamlesh Parmar from the SSG Hospital, Baroda.

The author is a Harvard-educated civil servant & writer, and has worked in the education sector
jayanti.ravi.dna@gmail.com