The nurse who accompanied her daughter in quarantine

Esraa, an eighth grade student, came back from school one day in early March feeling extremely tired. She told her mother, Wafaa, a nurse who works in the Imbaba Fever Hospital, that she had a migraine and that her entire body ached. 

“It never crossed my mind that she could have contracted coronavirus. I waited a few days until she exhibited more symptoms. I did not want to believe that I had transferred the virus to my own daughter,” says Wafaa. 

On the following day, Wafaa decided to take her children with her to the hospital, as she usually does on the days she is working and they aren’t at school. “But this time, I wanted them to be tested. I was expecting that I would test positive, not my daughter. I felt an overwhelming sense of guilt because there was a probability, even if it was one percent, that she had contracted it from [the hospital],” says Wafaa. “But it was my daughter who tested positive, and my son and I were negative.” 

The moment Wafaa received the test results back was quite difficult for her, especially when she heard that her young daughter tested positive. “Even today, whenever I remember that moment, I feel like I was dreaming. When the doctor informed me, I couldn’t believe it. I even thought I had misheard,” she says. 

“You know what’s going to happen. She needs to be isolated right now. The ambulance will take her to the quarantine hospital in Ismailia,” the doctors told Wafaa. 

The Health Ministry designated a list of 27 hospitals for testing and diagnosis and six other hospitals for isolating confirmed positive cases. But it was not an easy decision for Wafaa. 

Wafaa is a 40-year-old nurse, divorcee and the primary caretaker of two children — Esraa and a 10-year-old son. Wafaa takes both of her children to the hospital during her work shifts. “I divorced my husband six years ago, and, since then, I’ve been both the mother and the father to my children. I do not have anyone with whom I can leave my kids, so I’m forced to take them with me because I cannot leave them alone. I was very cautious with the protective measures, and I used to let them sit in the breakroom, away from all the patients. They did not come into contact with anyone,” Wafaa recalls. 

Esraa, who attends the Ahmed Zuwail Preparatory School in Giza, started showing symptoms in early March, before the government issued a decision to suspend educational activities across the country. Wafaa thinks that it is likely that Esraa contracted the virus from school. 

As a nurse, Wafaa knew that her daughter would be sent to the quarantine hospital on her own, an idea that she resisted. 

“I begged them to let me go with my daughter. She’s a child, and I could not have left her alone without knowing what would happen to her, if she’d live or die,” she says. With Wafaa begging and Esraa crying, the doctors allowed Wafaa to accompany her daughter to the quarantine hospital. 

Wafaa then had to make preparations very quickly. She dropped off her son at her mother’s house, then she headed to her own house to pack her things. A police car and an ambulance arrived at the house, picked up Wafaa and then drove to the Imbaba Fever Hospital to pick up Esraa. From there, they headed to a quarantine hospital in Ismailia. 

For Wafaa, it felt like a “surreal trip whose end only God knew,” as she put it. She stayed with her daughter inside the quarantine hospital for a week. Esraa battled through severe symptoms after the novel coronavirus attacked her lungs. 

“Mama, will I die?” Wafaa remembers Esraa asking her at one point. It was a question that Wafaa did not feel she had an honest answer for. 

“I would look at her and laugh, but my heart was breaking. I would tell her ‘no, you’ll live and recover and we’ll be out of here soon,’” says Wafaa. 

The hospital room that Wafaa and her daughter stayed in had two beds, a bathroom and a TV. Nurses gave them masks, soap, sanitizers and fever medication. Everyday, they were both provided with three full meals. Wafaa expressed utmost gratitude to the medical team of nurses and doctors in the Ismailia hospital, who treated her daughter as if they were family. 

For days, the mother waited for doctors to tell her that the tests had returned negative and that they could finally leave the hospital. “Inside the isolation room, there is nothing but the daily medications and tests. We were not even allowed to stand on the room’s balcony. We could not take even one step outside the room’s door. Whenever I needed something, I would knock on the door, and one of the nurses or doctors would talk to me from behind the door to see what I needed,” Wafaa recalls. 

Wafaa received the same treatment as her daughter as a precautionary measure. 

Wafaa and her daughter were dismissed from the quarantine hospital after their test results came back negative. And Wafaa was relieved that they were safe again, but she could not have predicted the stigma that would meet her at home. 

“When we arrived back home, all of the neighbors gathered around and insulted us. They told us we needed to leave the neighborhood right away, as if we were a disgrace to them or a virus that would infect them. But it is not our fault that we got infected. We do not choose to get infected. And unfortunately, they did not understand that no one is immune to the virus, that any one of them can contract it and then will have to come to me in the hospital. I will be the one helping them and putting my own life in danger,” she says. 

In early 2020, Wafaa took out a loan secured through her work in the Imbaba Fever Hospital so that she could rent a place for herself and her children. “I had just started renting that apartment in February. As soon as we came back from the hospital, the landlord knocked on my door. I thought he was coming to check on us, only to find out that he was evicting me immediately. He told me that he will void the contract. I did not know what I was going to do,” says Wafaa. 

Wafaa is like many other women who are the primary breadwinners in their households: she also serves as the caretaker for her two children, with little support from her ex-husband. “Even after my divorce, I could not obtain my legal rights. The court ordered my husband to pay only LE400 support for both of the kids,” she says. 

Wafaa pointed out that the Imbaba Fever Hospital gave her a week off to spend at home with her daughter, but that week is almost over. “We’re in an emergency situation, so paid leave is not allowed. I am thankful that they gave me a week off, but if I ask for another week, they will garnish my wages, which I cannot presently handle,” she adds. 

In a few days, Wafaa will have to go back to working on the frontlines of the medical response to COVID-19,  in a context that is difficult and critical for healthcare practitioners. All choices lead to the same conundrum: hunger or infection.