M'sian Nurse Working In SG Sheds Tears As She Finally Returns Home After 2 Years
"Would like to thank all Malaysians who got vaccinated! Because of you, I got to go home."
By Arisha Rozaidee — 08 Nov 2021, 05:29 PM
A Malaysian working in Singapore as a nurse recently went viral after she uploaded a video of her trip back home
On 1 November, Twitter user @trcyjntm, whose real name is Tracy Jantom, uploaded a video along with a caption that read, "Would like to thank all Malaysians who got vaccinated! Because of you, I got to go home."
The clip garnered over 452,300 views and 16,800 retweets.
Tracy told SAYS that she had not seen her family for over two years.
While eating a muffin on her flight, she started shedding tears as she got emotional.
When asked about how she felt about returning to Malaysia, she answered, "Initially, I felt excited, of course. Finally going back after two years. And my family had been counting down the days waiting for my arrival."
"But when I was in the plane going home, I felt emotional and sentimental. I went through so much during this pandemic. All those early mornings, late nights of serving the community and I finally made it until today," she added.
"I used to want to give up and leave everything behind but somehow I made it until today. That was why I cried in the plane, unknowingly."
In her viral clip, she showed that she got the chance to briefly meet her family at the airport.
"I told my family that I will see them after I'm finished [with] my quarantine but they insisted to see me at the airport upon my arrival even if it's from afar. When I saw them, I wanted to cry. I wanted to hug them so much but I couldn't and it was really frustrating because that was all I wanted to do after these two years," she added.
The 26-year-old woman from Miri, Sarawak, explained that she had been working in Singapore for five years
"It was mentally exhausting, to be in the frontline and to be away from my family for a very long time without any certainty of going back any time soon," she said.
"I had a lot of mental breakdowns. What is with the public backlash on nurses during the pandemic? Isolating us from the community because we risk spreading germs to them. Then there's also dealing with the virus face to face every day while protocols kept changing," she added.
"I decided that two years was more than enough for me to finally take a rest and be with my family. My mental health is more important than my career."
She has multiple videos on her TikTok profile detailing her experience as a nurse in Singapore.
In a tweet, she also noted that the video of her returning home garnered backlash from a few Singaporeans.
One person commented on her TikTok and wrote, "Thank God, hope the whole bunch of you faster go back."
While another comment read, "If you want to stay close to your family, don't work in Singapore in the first place."
