In the Company of Sister Reena
At first glance, Sister Reena was everything I didn’t associate with palliative care: brisk, loud, endlessly multitasking. But by the end of the day, I realized how wrong I had been. Beneath that dynamism was a deep well of compassion and connection.
I met Sister Reena at Uzhamalakkal, a village around 30 kilometers from Pallium India’s HQ in Thiruvananthapuram. I had accompanied the Home Care team on my second day at Pallium India. We had just made the journey to the OP clinic early in the morning, our Social Officer, Aizaq and driver Vinil hadn’t even had their breakfast. She arrived on her scooty, brimming with energy, juggling a dozen tasks at once — directing us to our first home visit, getting the OP clinic shutter opened, picking up supplies, checking in on the day’s plan with Sister Dinu and the other two while asking if someone had checked in with the new Team Doctor who was to join us. She was the perfect foil to her colleague, the calm and quietly efficient Sister Dinu.
And yet, by the end of the afternoon, she had destroyed all the biases I had and shown why she was good at what she was doing. Apart from the two homes where she was visiting for the first time, she knew her patients and their families intimately—not just their medical needs, but their struggles, their moods, and even their small quirks.
At one of the homes, she called out loudly, ‘Rajesheeeee’, the patient’s name, before walking in and then proceeded to chat with him and his family as if continuing a conversation from yesterday. ‘Rajesh’, a cheerful man in his early 40s was a quadriplegic, bed-ridden for 15 years. On our way back from the house, I asked her why she called out to Rajesh before entering and she told me it was her way of warning him that she was bringing in others with her as well as to gauge his mood. Some days he would be irritable and refuse to meet with any new people.
At another home, she laughed and gently teased a patient about his bidi-buying habit, her words disarming him more effectively than any lecture could. Every patient we visited, the team would get back on the bus to discuss the medicines to be given, each member updating their respective apps with new information.
By the time we returned to the bakery where she had left her scooty that morning, I was in awe. Sr. Reena had shown me what true palliative care looks like—not just medicine and checklists, but presence, empathy, and the gift of making patients and families feel seen, heard, and cared for.
She didn’t just change my perception of nursing in palliative care. She reminded me that compassion has many forms—sometimes quiet and soft-spoken, sometimes spirited and full of life.
– Varsha
May 2025 VTP participant
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