My name is Priyashnee. I have been a nurse for 11 years and I was a Covid-19 frontline worker. In December of 2021, as we anticipated the festive season +/- 2749 frontline healthcare workers were silently let go and I was one of them. I have decided to speak up and I need your support with my petition.

I formed part of the Covid-19 track and trace team, we were tasked with testing in areas and places normally the health sector would not be able to reach. We would go to rural and mainly disadvantaged areas to test people and provide them with the opportunity to get treated. We were first told in November of 2021 to decrease the number of people we tested from 400 to 100 a day. Then to our shock our contracts were terminated effective 31 December 2021.

The unemployment rate is high in this country, many of us had a black festive season and the painful thing is we had formed bonds with many patients and communities. I still get calls from community members asking where we are, they need us. This hurts because I am willing to go out there and help communities but in the absence of equipment I am left haunted by phone calls and cries for help. The fact of the matter is that we need all hands on deck, more people need to get tested and more people need the services we offer on foot. I am passionate about my job and I am still concerned about the pandemic as it is not over. I am mainly concerned because people are now required to go to facilities to get tested, what happens to people who physically cannot go? What happens to the people who are too far or too old, this affects our communities terribly. 

This petition is me speaking up, please join me and sign this petition, we need as many frontline workers as we can get. Many more communities need to be tested, many more communities that are on the sidelines of society also need help and cannot reach health care facilities.