Kottayam: “God helped my children and the family,” said C.C. Joseph, father of two nurses Veena and Sona, who reached their home at Thavalakkuzhy near Ettumanur from Iraq on Saturday. They were among the 46 nurses freed from the war-torn Tikrit and brought to Kochi by an Air India flight.
After recounting their ordeal in the hospital, they said they would never return to Iraq and added they would look for a job here. Apart from Veena and Sona, their elder sister Dona is also a nurse in Al Samawah in Iraq. However, Dona is still working in Iraq as the political situation there is favourable. Joseph alias Sunny of ‘Chakirian Thadathil’ had educated his three children by running a lorry.
“The Tikrit Teaching Hospital authorities left when war began. Forty-six of us were alone in the huge hospital complex devoid of any means of communication. Only two of the hospital staff stayed back with us. We were given provisions by the Red Cross. At times we were hopeless and was prepared to face the worst,” said Veena. Barely ten minutes after the nurses left the hospital complex, a bomb exploded over the hospital building, partially destroying it.
Sona and Veena had completed the general nursing course in a hospital in Kasargod by taking loans and spent Rs 3 lakh to go to Iraq after two years of working experience at a hospital in New Delhi, where they completed BSC nursing.
Sona was offered 750 US dollars and Veena 600. Though they worked for ten months in the hospital, they were not given two months’ salary. When they demanded it, the hospital authorities asked them to contact the embassy, Veena said.
