KOZHIKODE: “Everybody should pray for me. What else can I say? Let me see. I’m going there. Don’t know what awaits me. Let me go and find out,” a smiling Aswathi Unnikrishnan was heard saying in a video of a farewell meeting at the Wayanad district TB centre in Mananthavady before being transferred to a government lab at Sultan Bathery.
Perhaps it was one rare moment when she was seen low on confidence. The 24-year-old lab technician did not complete a month there as she contracted Covid and lost her life on Monday. As her friends watch the video again, some break down, others choke. They can only remember Aswathi as a cheerful girl. To her colleagues, she was a brave warrior who, despite a kidney disorder, helped others around her.
They are in shock as Aswathi had taken both doses of Covid vaccine a month ago. Daughter of Unnikrishnan, a tea factory worker at Rippon, Aswathi had high aspirations. “My daughter had the dream of going out of Wayanad for work and making it big in life,” said Unnikrishnan. “She never used to sit idle at home,” he said.
‘Sweet and warm, she never said no to work’
After completing BSc Medical Lab Technician course two years ago, Aswathi worked as a trainee at a private hospital in Kalpetta, before joining as a staffer under the National Health Mission. She worked for two years at the TB centre in Mananthavady and was transferred to the public health laboratory in Sultan Bathery barely a month ago, to test the swabs of TB patients.
Aswathi tested Covid positive on April 22 and was admitted to the district hospital ICU in Mananthavady the following day. “She had taken two doses of Covid vaccine more than a month ago. She had a cough, fever and sore throat. When her condition worsened, she was rushed to Kozhikode Medical College Hospital in an ICU ambulance but she died on her way to the hospital,” said a health department official.
Aswathi became the first health worker from the district to die of Covid. “She used to take all precautions during her daily commute to the TB centre,” said Unnikrishnan. She is also survived by mother P Bindu and brother Amal Krishna. Her funeral was held at her house near Rippon in Moopainad grama panchayat on Tuesday.
“She used to find lots of joy in writing poetry though she did not show many of them to others,” said Amal, who is a BTech student in Kannur. “She had enthusiastically taken part in the online poetry competition conducted by the district TB Centre recently,” he recalled. District TB Officer Dr Ambu V said: “She was very much dedicated to her profession. Always sweet and warm, she never said no to work.”