Health workers to mark another Mother’s Day away from children

ISTANBUL

On the frontline in the fight against coronavirus, devoted healthcare workers will have a second Mother’s Day away from their children, longing for a pure hug and kiss.

Since the outbreak of coronavirus, healthcare staff have been facing two options to prevent the risk of transmission: live a separate life from their families or live a self-isolated life in the same house.

The forced situation separates children from their parents and the longing comes out more with Mother’s Day around the corner.

Yesim Selcuk Tasdemir, an intensive care unit nurse at a hospital in Istanbul, is one of the mothers who have been fighting at the forefront against the coronavirus for around a year.

She left her son to her loved ones to take care of him who was just one year old when Tasdemir took the frontline.

“I have a child who is 2.5 years old now. I had to stay away from him while working at COVID intensive care unit. It was so difficult.”

Tasdemir said when she contracted the virus, she lost her sense of taste and smell but the only thing she asked her husband for was a piece of clothing of her son.

“When I recovered my sense of smell, I wanted to feel his smell first,” she recalled.

Later, Tasdemir’s little son was also infected the virus after one of her family members tested positive.

“Then I realized more clearly that I was not worried about myself at all, and that his catching the virus had worn me much more,” she said.

We miss both our children and parents, she said, adding: “We feel bitter, we won’t be able to hug or kiss [our children].”

Tasdemir said she hopes to speak of good things in the next Mother’s Day.

Missing smell of children

Zeliha Gurlek Ustabasi, a doctor at the same hospital, said that she loves her job but they have been going through a very difficult time for one and a half years and sometimes they feel inadequate as a doctor.

With their fight ongoing both in hospital and at home, she said they put great effort not to infect their children and loved ones.

Ustabasi said her mother takes care of her two children aged four and six.

“I couldn’t play with my children for a long time. Smell of [your] children is really something you miss,” she said.

Stressing that the virus claimed many young lives, she urged people to comply with measures to stay coronavirus-free.

*Writing by Sena Guler in Ankara