Pinoy nurse in UK tells story of 32-day quarantine in PHL facility

A 32-year-old Filipino nurse in the United Kingdom who used to work in Kuwait has shared his experience of not being able to help COVID-19 patients as a health worker upon coming home because he was quarantined for 32 days after arrival.

“I want this pandemic to end. I can’t just sit back and relax while people are dying,” said Marveen Silvestre, 32, currently a staff nurse at the Blackpool Teaching Hospitals in the United Kingdom.

Nurse Marveen Silvestre

In April last year -- a month after his resignation from the Asnan Tower -- Silvestre returned to the Philippines using his own money for airfare upon knowing that most hospitals back home were understaffed.

He was among the first batch of OFWs that arrived after the COVID-19 pandemic was announced.

However, Silvestre was quarantined with three other OFWs he did not know in a room upon arrival from Kuwait.

“I tested negative but one [of us] tested positive for COVID-19, so it took a while before we got out of quarantine facility,” he said in an interview via Messenger that started on August 25.

After his release from the isolation facility, Silvestre got the chance to do what he really intended to do in coming home to Baliuag, Bulacan.

“I worked at one of the hospitals in our town. But when my grandmother passed away in July, I resigned from the hospital.

"My wife and I just tried an online business that time. Then, when I had the opportunity, I left the country again to work in a hospital in  the UK, helping COVID-19 patients there.”

“I’m still afraid every day, every hour. But I know God is on our side,” he said. —LBG, GMA News