Kozhikode: 24-year-old warrior who braved kidney ailment loses battle to Covid

Express News Service
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 assembly on the Wayanad district TB centre in Mananthavady earlier than being transferred to a authorities lab at Sultan Bathery.

Perhaps it was one uncommon second when she was seen low on confidence. The 24-year-old lab technician didn’t full a month there as she contracted Covid and misplaced her life on Monday. As her associates watch the video once more, some break down, others choke. They can solely bear in mind Aswathi as a cheerful lady. To her colleagues, she was a courageous warrior who, regardless of a kidney dysfunction, helped others round her.

They are in shock as Aswathi had taken each doses of Covid vaccine a month in the past. Daughter of Unnikrishnan, a tea manufacturing unit employee at Rippon, Aswathi had excessive aspirations. “My daughter had the dream of going out of Wayanad for work and making it big in life,” stated Unnikrishnan. “She never used to sit idle at home,” he stated.

‘Sweet and warm, she  never said no to work’

After finishing BSc Medical Lab Technician course two years in the past, Aswathi labored as a trainee at a non-public hospital in Kalpetta, earlier than becoming a member of as a staffer underneath the National Health Mission. She labored for 2 years on the TB centre in Mananthavady and was transferred to the general public well being laboratory in Sultan Bathery barely a month in the past, to check the swabs of TB sufferers.

Aswathi examined Covid optimistic on April 22 and was admitted to the district hospital ICU in Mananthavady the next 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,” stated a well being division official.

Aswathi turned the primary well being employee from the district to die of Covid. “She used to take all precautions during her daily commute to the TB centre,” stated Unnikrishnan. She can also be survived by mom P Bindu and brother Amal Krishna. Her funeral was held at her home close to 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,” stated Amal, who’s a BTech scholar 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 stated: “She was very much dedicated to her profession. Always sweet and warm, she never said no to work.”