Tameshia Griffiths’ journey to death’s door and back

"God, me nuh know if me a guh make it out alive" was the thought racing through the mind of Tameshia Griffiths when she was admitted to the COVID-19 ward at the University Hospital of the West Indies.

A week before she was admitted, Griffiths said she was experiencing pain in the eyes, headaches, dizziness, a dry cough and fever. She stayed home, isolated and took paracetamol and cough syrup as well as home remedies but her condition only got worse.

"Me deh home for a week blending up everything my friends and family told me. It didn't work because I was home for the week and the symptoms got so bad, I ended up getting pneumonia," Griffiths said.

On March 17, she was admitted to hospital after coughing up mucus mixed with blood and was having difficulty breathing.

Living nightmare

"The doctor said that if I had stayed home one more day, I probably would've died because my oxygen levels were extremely low. When I inhaled, I have to cough out and that started irritating my chest. Even taking deep breaths, my lungs felt as if it wasn't working properly," Griffiths, an entrepreneur, shared.

When she arrived at the hospital, she was placed under the isolation tent and was immediately placed on an oxygen monitor. The moments which followed, Griffiths described as a living nightmare.

"Every night I went to bed hearing screams cause people are in pain, they are in fear that they might die. People have died in front of them, people have died in front of me," the 37-year-old said.

"Most nights I go to sleep with a dead body beside me and me a say if me in here for the same thing weh dem dead from, me just a wait until a time fi me dead, and that was so traumatising," she related.

Griffiths, a St Catherine resident, said that during her eight-day admission at the hospital, she saw eight bodies being removed from the ward, all being of persons who have succumbed to COVID-19. Ministry of Health data indicates that 618 have died from the virus as of Sunday. The number of confirmed cases increased by 350 to 41,013. Worldwide, COVID-19 has claimed at least 2,873,000 lives. While in the hospital, Griffiths feared she would have been numbered among the dead.

"I lay on my back the entire time because I was on the oxygen and I've seen the doctors trying to resuscitate someone, who eventually died. I hear persons crying for help from the nurse, some sobbing or praying. I felt trapped like I was somewhere and I didn't know what to do. I said 'God me nuh know if me a guh make it out alive, me nuh sure' and even though I tested positive, I was still in denial cause I never know one virus could be deadly so," Griffiths told THE STAR.

With three in every 10 Jamaicans who have been tested for COVID-19 returning positive results, the Government has tightened restrictions aimed at slowing the spread of the virus. Griffiths, having been to death's door and back, wants Jamaicans to exercise personal responsibility.

"I would encourage everybody to do their best not to get the virus. You don't want to be in there (the hospital). I've left up there and I hear people still saying that COVID-19 is not real. I want to tell them it is real, and not until you reach in the situation you will understand," she said.