THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Dr A Remla Beevi, director of medical education who bade adieu to a tumultuous stint on Tuesday, terms her last seven years as the most challenging in her 34-year career. She had an arduous task as the DME during the Nipah and then the pandemic outbreak in the state.
When the Nipah virus outbreak was reported in Kozhikode district in 2018, like any other health professional, Dr Remla was also at sea. Even today, Thiruvananthapuram native Dr Remla remembers that once the diagnosis was reached, health authorities took steps to set up isolation facilities in a jiffy.
However, she is still upset that the state lost Lini Puthussery, the nurse who died in the first outbreak. Dr Remla recalls that the diagnosis had not come when Lini fell ill. Dr Remla gives credit to the entire health department, including then health minister K K Shailaja and former health secretary Rajiv Sadanandan, for working unitedly to contain the Nipah virus spread within Kozhikode district. In 2020, when she was busy with her administrative work at the directorate of medical education in Thiruvananthapuram, the first Covid case was reported in the state. Later, the Covid spread was declared a pandemic.
“The biggest challenge was that apart from Covid patients, people affected with other illnesses as well as pregnant ladies were thronging the Thiruvananthapuram Medical College and SAT hospitals. We had to set up separate labour rooms, operation theatres, ICUs and separate wards and divide our staff into three pools – Covid, non-Covid and reserve,” Dr Remla told TNIE.
Many a time, she missed her family – comprising husband Dr E Abdul Khadar, former professor and head of the cardiology department of Kottayam Medical College, engineer son Mohammed Farooq Husain and daughter Dr A Sumayya residing in Kottayam – when she returned home after a long and tiring day.
Dr Remla became the DME in 2015 after serving as the principal in Thrissur, Alappuzha and Kottayam government medical colleges. She joined the government service in 1988 as a lecturer at the Government Medical College in Kottayam.
Dr Remla who has specialised in radiology, fondly remembers the team work rendered by former health minister Shailaja who went out of the way by reading medical books and journals about Nipah and Covid so that these would help her “health army” to combat the deadly viruses.