It’s a jab, not a stab!

Nurse Sheffanese Knight has been administering the COVID-19 Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine since March 10, and she has had to find creative means of calming those whose phobias magnify needles into swords.

Among the playful strategies she uses is to urge vaccination candidates to imagine that they are on the beach, wooing them to take deep breaths. In some instances, she prods them to pretend they are in church and to shout “Hallelujah!” when they get the jab.

“So, you know, you run a joke and get them comfortable. A lot of persons, some may not say it, but they do a sigh, their body language, you see the non-verbal movement, but you just have to talk to them, build a rapport, get them settled down,” she told The Gleaner last Wednesday, shortly after giving one of her subordinates, male orderly Artnell Stewart, his COVID-19 shot.

The team could hardly keep a straight face as Knight described her struggles with getting Stewart vaccinated.

“He is my patient, but the thing is that I am also his supervisor at the Milk River Health Centre, so what I know about him is, he is deathly afraid of needles,” she said.

WATCH: Nurse Sheffanese Knight … pulling from her ‘bag of tricks to soothe clients

Knight said that she gives Stewart his flu shot every year, but the vaccination effort is never without incident. Sometimes she has to coax him into submission, while on other occasions she has had to enlist the aid of other staffers to hold Stewart’s arm.

With a laugh, she recounted how staff at one point had to chase him around the clinic before he finally yielded to the needle.

NO SURPRISE

Knight said that it came as no surprise when she called Stewart last week with the option of taking the vaccine on either Monday or Wednesday that he opted for the latter.

“I know that it is because of his fear. When he came inside and saw me, I could see the relief in his eyes, as I never told him I would be working on Wednesday here,” she said.

Stewart, who admitted to The Gleaner that he has an abnormal fear of needles, was happy that it was his supervisor who oversaw the rite of passage.

“From morning I was singing, saying that I am going to take the thing in my hands,” he said, revealing how he had to boost his confidence to face the feared prick.

Although he was happy at the sight of Knight, Stewart wasn’t completely at ease.

“Mi see the needle and mi start fret, but mi get the vaccine, and it’s like mi never actually feel it to the extent weh mi would feel it,” he said of the experience.

And no one is happier than his supervisor, as she couldn’t resist one last dig at him.

“I asked him if he wanted to take a picture and he went on his phone when I uncovered the needle. He was like, ‘That one so big!’ I was like, ‘No, Artnell, man, this is the same one we use to do the babies,” Knight said, chuckling.

editorial@gleanerjm.com