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Sep 19, 2021 News
“It is in our nature to have questions and doubts but we have to trust the science. I know there are so many controversies surrounding the vaccines and I’m not going to get into any argument or religious debate. Do your own research and get to know the facts not the myths.”
By Sharmain Grainger
Kaieteur News – Despite daily global reportage of daunting COVID-19 news, some people are still not convinced that the novel coronavirus disease is a real threat to human existence. Some have even graduated to thinking that it’s all a political ploy and have essentially thrown caution to the wind while others, though convinced that there is a threat, refuse to accept that a mere vaccine can save them from certain death.
However, Nurse Leslyn Holder, the Manager of Quality Improvement and Assistant Director (Ag) of Nursing Services at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC), is not propagating any of these theories.
Although she has never been infected, she certainly has been affected on a personal level by the scourge of the disease. “I have goose bumps thinking about it. I have a brother who is a diabetic, he is very ill with diabetes and I had warned the entire family about how to stay safe. I had even laid down some strict rules. However, much to my prediction, my brother had COVID-19 recently,” she shared.
Her brother’s diagnosis was in fact not straightforward as, according to Nurse Holder, “we thought it was the diabetes because his first COVID test was negative. Low and behold within a week we had a call informing us that his test (PCR) was now positive.”
As expected, the next stage of this interesting development was that Nurse Holder’s brother was admitted to the COVID-19 Hospital at Liliendaal, Greater Georgetown, where he spent two weeks receiving treatment. The process, she admitted, was not an easy one for the family.
In fact, she confided that “when he was admitted we didn’t think we would see him alive again but we did. It was like a real miracle. I was trying to be hopeful because at that time he had the first dose of his COVID vaccine and I still believe he survived because of that one dose.”
Reflecting on that worrisome period, Nurse Holder said that her brother’s blood glucose level had gone through the roof and hope, at that point, was understandably dwindling. “We thank God every day for his safe and healthy return home and we were very grateful to the nurses and doctors of the facility. My brother continues to speak highly of the team and the care he received,” she added.
QUALITY IMPROVEMENT
But Nurse Holder hasn’t only been dealing with COVID-19 from the sidelines. In fact, she has had an active role in the fight against the disease. Turning attention to the Quality Improvement (QI) side of her profession, she explained that it isn’t only focused on one aspect of healthcare but rather it impacts everything healthcare, including hospital standards.
Even as the threat of COVID-19 was closing in on our shore last year, the GPHC, she recalled, decided to form a task force and “I became a member of the task force…I am still very much a part of the team.” The task force, according to Nurse Holder, is responsible for joint decision-making, policy and procedure formation and implementation. However, apart from that, she noted that QI entails teaching and capacity building responsibilities. The Quality Assurance component of QI, she explained, ensures that the standards set are maintained.
However, as head of the QI team, she intimated, “I had to decide on halting some of our usual programmes to be a part of this needed preparation for COVID-19.”
“Infection Control and Prevention (IPC) is a critical component of quality care. Therefore, the department along with the medicine team (doctors) embarked on extended sensitisation and capacity building training sessions for GPHC and its external facilities and these are still maintained,” Nurse Holder noted with pride.
FORMATIVE YEARS
Nurse Holder, who is mother to two adult children – Lisa Holder and Kevin Mohan – both of whom reside overseas, is happily married to Stephen Thisby.
But many years earlier, on February 13, 1969 to be exact, she became the first child born to her parents – Grace and Jewan Parmanand.
Since her parents’ union did not last, by the time she was two years old her homemaker mother decided to remarry to a man, Walrick Vanlewin, who would help to raise the young Leslyn in their Third Avenue, Bartica, Region Seven home. “I grew up with my step-dad, he was a sign artist…unfortunately he passed away more than 30 years ago,” said Nurse Holder who maintains a relationship with her biological father and adores her mother who is now 80 years old.
Reminiscing on her childhood days, she spoke of attending the St. Anthony’s RC Primary School, and the Bartica Government Secondary School, but did not see through to the end. “As a high school drop-out I left with no qualifications. After a series of unpleasant experiences in my early life, I decided to study for CXCs through Adult Education. As a start at 18, I passed three subjects, enough to get me started in Nursing School as a Student Nursing Assistant,” said Nurse Holder who is living proof that dedication and desperation can unlock crucial abilities needed to exist and succeed in life.
But delving into the field of nursing was not accidental for her. She confessed, “Since I was around seven years old, I knew I was going to be a nurse by profession. But in the realm of nursing, I found that I wanted more – a broader perspective. It was either Nursing Education (teaching) or continue as a Public Health Nurse. And as time moved me through, with the many experiences I gained as a nurse, I decided that should the opportunity presents itself I will pursue at first a Bachelor’s degree in Health and Social Care and then, a Master’s in Public Health. In doing so I still get to practice in healthcare but with the opportunity to reach the wider community,” she quipped. Nurse Holder has over the years been making all her nursing goals a reality.
UNWANING COMMITMENT
For our featured Frontline Worker, who has been involved in health care for 30 plus years now, her commitment is nestled in her unwaning desire to care for humanity. But with the advent of COVID-19, she has learnt many lessons that might’ve eluded her in the past. “One is the value of family, protecting your loved at all times and being there for them. Although I am not sure that my family can say that I have been there for them; not sure I have been a good mother, daughter, sibling or spouse, but in my mind I have, but it is difficult to be present in two places at the same time.”
To ensure that she remains safe to do right by her family, Nurse Holder who is fully vaccinated follows the necessary guidelines that have been imposed since “I think COVID-19 is going to be around for a while and our survival depends on adherence to the rules, vaccination and maintaining a healthy life style.”
She is nevertheless fully aware that “I can still contract COVID although the risk is low. Therefore, I follow the rules for hand hygiene and wearing a facemask. Social or physical distancing I find most challenging. I try my best to maintain this but it is difficult, especially when it comes to shopping, etc., so I do not go out apart from work and grocery shopping.”
Given the added protection of the vaccine, Nurse Holder has some advice for persons who are reluctant to be vaccinated. “It is in our nature to have questions and doubts but we have to trust the science. I know there are so many controversies surrounding the vaccines and I’m not going to get into any argument or religious debate. Do your own research and get to know the facts not the myths.”
As a nurse for over three decades, she is well aware that the COVID vaccination requirement is much like any other in the past decades. “Vaccination works, just look at the history…we have to trust the science. As a young nurse in the early 90s, I was on the Measles Vaccination Campaign. Some of the young people or young nurses have never seen a case of measles, except for the textbook version,” Nurse Holder noted.
And even as she continues to advocate for vaccine uptake, she seeks to remind the public that “COVID-19 variants are here proving that the virus is very intelligent but we are humans and are far more intelligent. Get vaccinated and let’s create herd immunity so that we can go back to some normalcy.”
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