Women in force at the Seychelles Public Health Laboratory |24 April 2020

The team of ladies who were on duty on the day of our visit. Also in the picture is Mr Biscornet (Photo: Joena Meme)

Did you know, out of 17 staff at the Public Health Laboratory, 15 of them are WOMEN? Yes this is a fact worth mentioning! During the COVID-19 special scenario, most mothers are allowed to stay at home with their children and families, but for these women, they have to report to work daily as they are not essential workers but critical workers. We can say our fate in COVID-19 is in their ‘hands’.

Rose-May, Selma, Julia, Josepha, Irene, Sylvette, Lina and Brigitte were some of the staff working on the day of our visit. We also have Monica, Emelyn, Stephanie and Victoria who come from clinical laboratory, the research unit and a private lab respectively. All these ladies do not wear any make-up and have to have their hair always tightly stuck, which is a general rule of the laboratory to prevent cross-contamination from the sample being handled to the lab personnel. The men – Leon, Nicholas (from the clinical lab) and Gary – have the honour and privilege to work with these fine ladies on the frontline of testing. Other ladies in the lab play a supportive role, and these are Johnette, Renette and Nicole.

“We have to come to work even if we have children as we have to be present in this crucial time to help save the lives of others,” noted Josepha Louis-Marie, a laboratory technician.

“We are doing this for our country, Seychelles. We form part of the team to respond towards the fight against COVID-19 and we all have to leave our family and sacrifice this time in order to fulfill our duty. For all lab technicians and technologists, as soon as we get home, we have to take a shower first, wash our clothes separately then meet our family. But this is the normal norms of any lab staff at every given time,” said Brigitte Pool, the head of the Infectious Disease Surveillance unit.

“COVID-19 is just another one of the diseases we handle. For us, laboratory staff, we are the ones who wash our hands the most, all the time. We have a very strict guidance to follow when we work in a lab and so far in Seychelles, we do respect all these norms,” concludes Mr Biscornet.