When home care worker Shazia Anwar has had a tough day, when her back hurts from lifting and she’s particularly tired, it’s her clients’ smiles and words of appreciation that keep her going.
Anwar has been a home care worker for eight years and while the work has always been physically and emotionally challenging, she is grateful for the role she plays in her clients’ lives. She is there for five clients 24-7, ready to provide a supportive ear or to take them to the ER in the middle of the night, if necessary. She doesn’t mind. She finds it rewarding and said her clients “are like family to me.”
Yet now with the coronavirus pandemic, the job has become scary. Every day her work requires her to be out in the community, shuttling between her clients’ homes, pharmacies and grocery stores, to make sure their needs are met. She’s in physical contact, in close quarters, with multiple people a day.