‘Lost yet Again’ by Nigerian Medical Photojournalist, Aisha Bada, is a long term project which delves into the daily activities of Nurses and Doctors within Nigeria who are working on the front lines in response to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Her project in particular highlights the story of a 16-year-old boy who was suspected to have contracted the disease. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), there have been 166,756 confirmed cases from the 3rd of January 2020 till the 6th of June 2021. There have been major concerns in regards to the safety of health workers with reports of them not being properly equipped with Personal Protection Equipment (PPE), not receiving their salaries for months on end and being under staffed.
“Last year I started shooting medical stories because I realised that it is something that I really connect to. As a medical student and coming from a family filled with medical stories, I feel like it is important to share other peoples stories within the field so that people have an idea of what we go through. I wanted to use everything I have such as my background in photography to show people what medical professionals go through.” Explains Aisha.
Aisha’s ‘fly on the wall’ approach to capturing her images, enables the viewers an intimate insight into the daily activities of the nurses and doctors on duty. We are given a glimpse of the fast paced action that takes place from time to time then a strong switch to a more slow paced atmosphere, connoting how unpredictable and at times, chaotic a health workers shift may be.
“When I started photographing these stories, the pandemic was easing off so some of the nurses were not wearing PPE. Photographing in PPE is very difficult, especially when you are wearing it for around three to ten hours! I would have to take it off sometimes.“
We can almost feel how refreshing it is not to be wearing a PPE through Aisha’s image of a female nurse in her car who simply has a mask on. Aisha successfully engages the viewers on an alluring journey of how a day to day ‘on call’ shift looks like for many health care workers within Nigeria.
Sadly, Aisha passed away in January 2022, her legacy lives on.
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