Hospital workers unsung heroes during holidays

MANILA, Philippines - While most people are at home with their families celebrating the New Year, hospital workers are busy treating injured revelers.

Hospital workers are the unsung heroes during the Yuletide season. They work round-the-clock to treat patients who need their care.

“We are here to serve the people. It’s part of our mandate so although we want to spend the holidays at home, call of duty prevails. So we are here,” said John Paul Ner, emergency room chief resident at the East Avenue Medical Center (EAMC) in Quezon City.

For five years now, Ner has been on duty during New Year’s Eve but he is not complaining.

“Personally, we are happy here. We work together as a family here at the emergency room, so although we are busy taking care of patients, it’s not lonely to be here…And we were not forced to get this schedule. It is understood that once you work in a hospital, your life will be like that,” Ner said.

EAMC security supervisor Reynaldo de Vera, on the other hand, is thankful that his wife understands the responsibility that goes with his job and is happy to help patients and their relatives.

“Although I want to spend the holiday with my family, I could not do so because of my job. This is one of the times when we cannot take a leave because of the many patients that come to the hospital,” he said.

“Although this is a demanding job, it’s very fulfilling... I’ll just try to make up with my three children when I come home,” he added.

Meanwhile, it was nurse Rea Angelica de Polonia’s first time to be on duty on New Year’s Eve at the ER of EAMC and she prepared herself for the “toxic” load.

“I already anticipated that. I was prepared to see patients flooding the ER, especially since this hospitals is really where people usually go. We don’t only see firecracker cases but there are also vehicular accidents and stab wound (cases),” she said.

De Polonia had been on duty for 14 hours when she was interview by The STAR. She was supposed to log out at 6 a.m. yesterday but she still had to finish preparing the patients’ charts.

“That’s part of the sacrifice of our profession. As they say, (it’s) the call of duty of being a nurse. Unlike other professions, we are dealing with people and they are not something that we could bring and work on at home. Our presence at the hospital is important,” she added.

De Polonia initially worked at the EAMC as a volunteer nurse under the RN (Registered Nurse) Heals program of the Department of Health in 2011. Last November, she became a regular employee of the hospital.

But she admitted that when she graduated from high school in her province of Tuguegarao, she wanted to take up law. But since almost all of her friends went to nursing school, she was influenced to take up nursing.

“I decided to make the most of this and I learned to love the profession,” De Polonia said.