‘HERO IN A PINK PINAFORE’ by Rowan Marcus

‘HERO IN A PINK PINAFORE’

by Rowan Marcus

Glennys arched her aching back and prepared for the night’s shift. It would be a long one. She was on the deep-clean crew, tasked with cleaning the Intensive Care Unit overnight. A shudder went down her bending spine as she thought about the invisible enemy that was not just theoretically everywhere, but here in actual fact. The doors she was about to push open were filled with patients who not only had Coronavirus, but for whom the battle had now become serious. The ward would be swimming with the virus – and it was her task to eliminate as much of it as possible, her weapons an artillery of mops, gloves, masks, cloths and bleach. 

“Why do you do it?” someone had asked her the day before. “It’s not as if you are even paid well.”

“I’m here to look after the patients,” she had replied with all the conviction of a doctor. After all, if the cleaners did not clean, the hospital could not open at all. The virus that resisted attempts to eliminate it would run free. 

                Every surface would have to be wiped clean, and then washed down again. Every floor mopped, and with the perfect mix of water and chemicals. Not a drop more or less of chlorine than prescribed. Even a single oversight would give a beachhead to an enemy that was both mindless and ruthless. Glennys was certain that she was cleaning every surface more times than she was required to, but the alternative, being uncertain of having covered every surface, was unthinkable.

“What if you get sick? What are you going to do then?” the same friend had asked.

“If I get it, I get it,” had been her stoic reply.

As Glennys walked through the doors, she was greeted with a smile by the head nurse of the ward. She paused briefly to make sure her Personal Protective Equipment was all on and fitted properly, and then launched into her task. She began with the touch points, the places that would be handled most frequently and therefore the highest risk: door panels; bed railings; the nurses’ counter, against which exhausted staff would rest a moment before returning to the never-ending task of caring for the seriously ill.

                Next, she moved on to the beds themselves, wiping down every metal surface and sterilizing the entire area around the patients with chlorine. The indiscriminate nature of the illness hit Glennys as she moved between the beds; in the first bed was an old woman in her nineties, in the next another girl eight decades younger. As she rubbed the stainless steel of the bedframe, Glennys stopped a moment to wonder at the marvel of the equipment set up to care for the ill. One of the patients was hooked up to a ventilator, helping her breathe when her own lungs were not able to do so for themselves; another was attached to a suction machine, allowing the patient to clear his throat; as she watched, this patient pulled on an alarm bell as the coughing violently shook his frame. Glennys turned back to her work, knowing that she must continue, must do her part to make sure this virus was given no chance to spread.

                As she worked, though her eyes and her attention were bent over washing the floor, she could not help thinking of the nurses and doctors now rushing about the patient like a whirlwind of selfless energy. Nor could it escape her attention that the patient they were racing to save was himself an unsung hero. He himself had, up until three days ago, been one of those doctors rushing to and fro, for long thankless hours, doing his best to make patients comfortable as they fought the virus. Then he had become ill himself, and over the course of a shift gone from being staff to patient.

“Those are the real heroes,” she thought to herself, and with every aggressive thrust of her mop across the floor she thought of other NHS workers she had either known herself or had heard about from fellow workers, heroes who had not only fought the virus, but lost:

Asreema Nasreen, much younger than Glennys, only 36 years of age. She had been healthy, strong and Glennys had heard the phrase “so full of life” by everyone who had spoken about her. She had worked in a West Midlands hospital for 16 years – and had started just like Glennys herself, as a cleaner and housekeeper. She had qualified as a nurse herself only a matter of months ago, some time in 2019, and then fallen ill as she worked in the ward. Now she had passed away, leaving three children.

Or there was John Alagas, younger still, at 23; he had worked a 12-hour shift treating patients with the virus, without a rest or the chance to go home, though he had begun to feel ill himself. There simply weren’t enough staff to go round. Then, after finally going home, he had collapsed and shortly thereafter, also died.

There was Glen Corbin, who had come out of retirement, specifically to help with the pandemic, or Liz Glanister, who had been a grandmother. All these people, and more, had risked and lost their lives in selfless pursuit of healing others.

                Glennys looked up as she moved her bucket to the next area, and saw a nurse sitting on an empty bed, the same bed that had been a hive of activity the last time she had looked up. The nurse had tears streaming down her cheeks behind her mask. Glennys longed to comfort the woman, to throw her arms around her, but that was the one thing she must not do. Physical contact was viewed by the unseen enemy as opportunity to latch on to another person. A moment later the nurse pulled herself together, and raced off to serve some other patient. 

                Glennys bent her head and continued with her work, until the dawn’s rays began to play across her neck through the window. She was finally finished for the day. Glennys took a moment to rest against her mop and survey her handiwork. Every surface cleaned and recleaned, sparkling and sterile. Abruptly she massaged her temple, a migraine spreading across her forehead. She hoped she was just tired, but the nausea rising with it was not the usual result of a hard day’s night. As she laboriously cleaned and put away her cleaning equipment, Glennys thought again of the bravery of the NHS staff who were now swarming in the doors to take their place on the day shift, completely unaware that she also was an unsung hero.

STATISTICS

Whilst the character of Glennys is fictional, every detail of the situation she describes is very real, and all of the cases which her mind drifted to during her cleaning shift are real men and women affected on the frontline by Covid-19. 

The following are the most recent statistics on the Coronavirus; the sheer volume of the numbers speaks of the serious risk to which these unsung heroes place themselves in order to stop this pestilence:

• More than 1 million cases worldwide – currently 1,348,628;
• 74,816 deaths worldwide;
• 51,608 cases in the UK alone;
• 5,373 deaths in the UK – as of 24 March the figure was 422;
• Deaths initially were of the elderly or those with an underlying condition – this is no longer the case; victims are younger, and healthier;
• NHS workers – up to 1 in 4 hospital workers in some parts of the country are off sick with suspected Coronavirus symptoms;

In the midst of all this, NHS workers, from doctors and nurses to cleaning staff, battle on against the virus.

Copyright, 2020 Rowan Marcus. All Rights Reserved

Rowan Marcus, beowulf.theway@gmail.com