A medical officer with the Department of Anaesthesia at Korle-Bu has shared her emotional account at the forefront of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Dr Theresa Quartey Papafio is among the many frontline health workers who are working tirelessly to ensure that Covid-19 patients are well taken care of.

Deployed to work at the Ghana Infectious Disease Center (GIDC), Dr Quartey Papafio saw firsthand the harrowing effect of Covid-19 on the lives of people, giving her a better appreciation of some of the things she hitherto took for granted.

"Going to work without knowing whether your patient will make it or not and coming back home and not having the luxury to sit with your family like you used to are all little things have shaped my life," she said.

Recounting some tough moments as a frontline health worker a year after the pandemic hit the shores of the country, Dr Quartey Papafio disclosed that there were moments where she contemplated quitting her job, owing to the many deaths she witnessed with some of her patients.

"Seeing death or seeing people fight for their lives day in and day out, that alone is enough to dampen you sometimes. All these humbled me," she said.

Her comments come as part of discussions on the impact of Covid-19, a year after the pandemic hit the shores of the country.

Speaking during an interview with Emefa Adeti on Joy Prime's Prime Morning Show, she recalled moments at the hospital when she had to switch between giving hope to patients and their families or being the bearer of bad news.

"Sometimes breaking hard news to family about the demise of their relatives is also a challenge. Once I met a patient who had just been brought in and he kept telling me he needed to survive because he's the breadwinner of his family. I had assured him that he was going to survive

"This was me that had assured a wife and family that the breadwinner is going to come back home. But soon after, we lost him," she added.

"All these things had a psychological toll on me," she said.

Not only did some of these moments take their toll on her emotionally, but also on her relationships with family and friends as the distance between them grew wider with each new work demand.

This also affected the amount of time she had to spend with her family. The more hours she spent at work, the less time she had at home with her family and loved ones.

That notwithstanding, her passion for saving lives continues to drive her to work harder until hopefully, this pandemic dies down and life returns to normal.