A mom and her 2 sons help nurse Long Islanders back to health
Kalowti Mohan, center, with her sons Khemraj, left, and Barry. Credit: Reece T. Williams
For anyone who's been a recent patient at Long Island Jewish Valley Stream Hospital, there's a good chance a member of the Mohan family took their temperature, gave them medication, or provided comforting words in a time of pain and anxiety.
Nursing runs in the family for the Mohans of Franklin Square, including mom Kalowti, 65, and her sons, Khemraj, 44, and Barry, 31, who all work at the Northwell Health hospital.
Theirs is a Mother's Day tale of separation and of reunion. Of a commitment to patient care handed down from a mother to her children.
“Family is very important to me,” Kalowti Mohan, a registered nurse in general medical service, told Newsday during an interview with her sons at the hospital. “At this point in my life I am so happy; so very happy.”
Mohan emigrated from her native Guyana to the United States in 1981, joining her husband Laldhar.
She was a nurse in Guyana but feared transferring her nursing license in the United States because at the time, she was living here illegally. So she took up a career in banking.
But Mohan, who is now a U.S. citizen, longed for a return to nursing, and quietly nudged Khemraj, an admittedly aimless young adult at the time, to follow suit.
Together, mother and son attended Farmingdale State College, where they each received nursing degrees.
“She was the driving influence that pushed me in a direction when I had no direction,” said Khemraj Mohan, a surgical nurse practitioner in the operating room at LIJ since 2004. “She positively manipulated me into a career that I am very satisfied with.”
In 2005, Kalowti Mohan and her husband, tired of the harsh New York winters, moved to Orlando with Barry, then age 14.
Kalowti Mohan continued her nursing career at Florida Hospital, now known as AdventHealth, while Laldhar Mohan worked there as a unit coordinator.
Barry Mohan, who now works in the medical surgical unit at LIJ, recalls listening to the dinner table conversations about nursing, knowing his destiny had already been charted.
“I saw how [Kalowti] would connect with the patients and I wanted to follow in her footsteps,” said Mohan, whose wife is a nurse at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park.
After 15 years, the Mohans became homesick, longing to reunite with Khemraj and his two children.
Khemraj Mohan persuaded his mother and brother to apply for nursing positions at LIJ in mid-2020 — during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic as hospitals filled up with deathly ill patients and doctors and nurses also succumbed to the virus.
“I was never really worried,” Khemraj Mohan said of his mom working through the pandemic. “It’s always in the back of my mind but I know how immaculate she is with washing her hands and protecting herself.”
Michelle Osborne, director of patient care services at the hospital, hired all three Mohans.
“Once you have one and he’s good character-wise, why not hire the whole family?” Osborne said. “ … They are excellent at their jobs. They’re great nurses. Very compassionate.”
While the Mohans generally work different shifts, and in separate units of the hospital, they still find occasion to share a midnight meal or consult together on patient care.
And although they employ different approaches — mom is more of a ‘by the book’ nurse and Barry Mohan takes a more conversational approach with patients — they rely on each other’s strengths and experience.
“Her professionalism definitely stuck with me,” said Barry Mohan, who was recently honored for his patient care, of his mother. “How I come to work. How I address people. How I communicate with co-workers. It’s dead-on inspired by what she’s done.”
Kalowti Mohan was recently offered a promotion to nurse manager but declined, preferring to stay bedside with patients.
“One key in any job is if you don’t like it you’re going to be miserable,” said Kalowti Mohan, who helps guide young nurses. “And if you have a job and you’re miserable you can’t perform as you should … you need to like what you’re doing. And if you like what you’re doing, nothing will be wrong.”
The Mohans don’t just share close quarters at work.
They also live in three separate homes within five minutes of each other in Franklin Square, close enough for a quick family dinner or a hug after an especially difficult shift.
On Mother’s Day, Kalowti Mohan will be off but her sons will be on shift at the hospital.
And while they’ll give their mother flowers and share dinner together on Saturday, Khemraj Mohan knows his mother has already received the only gift she ever wanted.
“We are all together now,” he said. “And that’s probably the best she ever got for Mother’s Day. For years we were all apart and now we’re all together.”
Robert Brodsky is a breaking news reporter who has worked at Newsday since 2011. He is a Queens College and American University alum.
