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Born in Pallipad in Alappuzha district of Kerala, she did her schooling in Haripad and, despite stiff opposition from her family, joined the nursing course in American Baptist Mission Hospital in Hanumakonda, Warangal district in Andhra Pradesh. Her cousin, who was in the Air Force and was her local guardian while she was doing her course, was a tower of strength. She was selected by the Railway Service Commission and was appointed in Kharagpur in the Eastern Railway division. But she had to give up her seniority and take a pay cut to come down to Madras to be with her husband who needed her as he was going through a bad patch. She had three sons by then and wanted the family to be together.
“I was lucky to have an Oriyan servant maid. She stayed with me for 12 years and helped bring up my children,” Leelamma remembers gratefully. But she was very frustrated that though she had become ‘nursing sister’ in Kharagpur, she had to take the junior post of staff nurse in the Perambur Railway Hospital, Chennai, in 1984. “I gave in writing that I was willing to lose my seniority and take the cut in basic pay because of my family circumstances.” So, she did not want to take legal recourse to correct the anomaly. More trouble followed in Chennai because of the “government’s quota system even in promotions”. People who were raw hands climbed the service ladder faster than her. “I was totally depressed when I came to Chennai but I did not let that affect my work,” she smiles sweetly.
“That is very true. She was so soft spoken and so gentle with me when I was a patient. That is enough to give confidence to a patient. She was mainly responsible for my recovery after a major operation,” says Rathi Ramananda, who remembers her invaluable service in the cardiology department. That is not to say Leelamma was “sugar and spice and everything nice”. Basically a bold woman, she would take out her anger and frustration on the authorities. She did not fail to rub it in that though she was a senior, she was still holding the junior-most post.
She came across a wide variety of people: From the high and mighty to the illiterate. She won their hearts with her unstinting service and many still remember her. “I would never sleep or rest when on night shift though the other nurses would chide me for this. I would spend all my time sitting erect and listening. I would instinctively know when a patient needed help and rushed to help.” Her dream of becoming matron came in 2000 when she had just three years left for retirement.
She vaguely remembers these awards “because I am not bothered about awards”, she says self-consciously and it is left to her two sons to search for them and show them. She is still so active that her colleagues told her when she retired April 30 that she could go on for another 10 years. But all that Leelamma can now think of is taking some well-earned rest and looking after her family. Her future plans? “God will lead us. Everything has been happening only according to His will,” said Leelamma and her husband Baby Kutty in a chorus. S Chitra
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How do you defeat the system that is unfair to you? By working hard and proving your worth. That is the philosophy that carried Leelamma Baby Kutty through the 33 years of service as a Railway nurse.
Leelamma who took up nursing because she wanted a job, was very clear in her mind that whatever the administrative irritants, her duty was towards the patients. “The main thing was looking after the patients. Whatever anybody said or did, I only wanted my patient to get well.”
Leelamma was shifted from department to department. But that was her gain because she became an expert in dealing with any situation.
The 33 years of such dedicated work has given her spondylitis, arthritis, etc… But it has also got her three Railway Week awards for meritorious service: She got the first one when she was serving in Kharagpur, the second in 1994-95 when Dr K A Abraham was the chief medical officer in Perambur Railway Hospital, and the third in 2003.
