SAVANNA-LA-MAR, Westmoreland — As one nurse likened her job on the front lines of the COVID-19 fight to a suicide mission and wondered whether it was time to throw in the towel after yet another colleague died on the job, the head of their union yesterday urged them to make time to take care of themselves.

Thirty-seven-year-old Diagrea Davis-Cunningham, who led the nursing team at Savanna-la-Mar Public General Hospital’s heavily trafficked Accident and Emergency Unit (A&E), died at Cornwall Regional Hospital on Monday night, leaving her colleagues reeling.

“It’s very traumatising, so much persons dying; and it’s even worse when it’s your own colleague. It’s very hard,” said a nurse who asked not to be identified by name. “You think it easy to see your colleague [in need of help], and [you] can’t help and your colleague a dead in front a you?”

Her colleague, Tamekia Hughes, said Davis-Cunningham’s death struck home.

“It could have been any of us, just abruptly leaving our families to mourn,” she said.

What, she said, should be a job done from the heart is now more like a “suicide mission”.

“With all of what we’ve faced in this system, it’s now at a point where I’m asking myself, is it really worth it?” she told the Jamaica Observer.

Davis-Cunningham, she said, had been a “gem” who went beyond the call of duty, though she had also known her fair share of loss at the hands of COVID-19. Her uncle died from the disease on August 23.

“Him fully vaccinated and him still ketch COVID and it kill him. Suh mi nuh understand,” shared Davis-Cunningham’s depressed aunt, Earlene Comrie.

There are unconfirmed reports that Davis-Cunningham was not vaccinated but Nurses Association of Jamaica (NAJ) President Patsy Edwards Henry was unable to say whether Davis-Cunningham had been among the more than 50 per cent of the hospital staff who have been vaccinated. She led a team that travelled to Savanna-la-Mar yesterday to mourn with their colleagues.

“I really didn’t ask [if Davis-Cunningham was vaccinated] because we are mourning now and I don’t want to get into [a discussion about] vaccinated against unvaccinated,” Edwards Henry told the media. She did, however, use the opportunity to repeat an appeal for everyone to take the vaccine.

“While we may have the naysayers speaking about the vaccine, there is evidence that if persons take the vaccine their symptoms will be less and it can prevent death. And I am [imploring] persons to take the vaccine. I am also encouraging my nurses and the health care teams across the island to care for themselves,” urged the NAJ head.

She said on Monday night the nursing fraternity began to pray when word came that Davis-Cunningham had been transferred to Cornwall Regional Hospital after taking a turn for the worse.

Edwards Henry said that of seven nurse managers from Savanna-la-Mar Public General Hospital who were out with COVID-19, Davis-Cunningham had been the one struggling the most.

The combination of medical personnel incapacitated by the disease and others who stayed off the job out of sheer exhaustion has been taking a toll on the entire A&E unit which Davis-Cunningham led.

Senior A&E nurse Tateika Coke Gooden said the team is now caring for about 80 patients daily, while the unit is designed to accommodate about 30. The impact of staff testing positive for the virus has been brutal, with sometimes only five of the 12 or 14 nurses rostered for work showing up to work in A&E, which is one of the hospital’s busiest departments.

“Basically, every day we are short-staffed, and the patient load is a lot; persons are still coming to the hospital,” said Coke Gooden. “Our department is to house probably about 30 persons and currently we have over 70 persons going 80 persons in the department. So, it is very hard for us to bear the patient load at this time. Persons are not getting the care that they should get.”

Yesterday, there was an outpouring of love from people grieving Davis-Cunningham’s passing.

“A one thing certain, Sav-la-Mar lose one good nurse. She always put her job first,” said her aunt Comrie, who added that Davis-Cunningham would go to work even when she was under the weather.

The NAJ head said the day was spent giving the grieving nurses time to “exhale”.

“We are just allowing them to say how they are feeling and we are praying with them, we are crying with them. We are just here today to support, not only our nursing colleagues, but the entire staff family,” said Edwards Henry. “It is sad. Nurses are crying. Other staff members are crying. We visited with the family, the family is broken. Her husband is totally broken. The levels of grieving are high.”

Earlier this month, registered nurse at Percy Junor Hospital Annette White-Best also died from COVID-19 complications.