NEW DELHI: On March 2, the national capital recorded its first COVID-19 case. In little more than four months till July 6, the city crossed one lakh cumulative cases. Working round the clock, healthcare workers, including doctors, nurses and paramedical staff, emerged as frontline warriors during these strenuous times.
Away from their families, a vast majority of them without adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) kits have been fighting an uneven battle against the deadly virus. In the last four months, there have been also reports of attacks on healthcare professionals despite putting their lives at risk and fighting the outbreak head-on. The New Indian Express spoke to three doctors — one of them has been engaged in a COVID-19 ward since the outbreak, one has completed a month’s duty and another recently joined the COVID task.
‘It’s a new normal, accept it’
Dr Piyush Ranjan, deployed in AIIMS’s COVID-19 team from its very first day, said his biggest achievement in the last four months has been overcoming the fear. “I am not scared anymore…what I have sensed is that it is more hysteria created,” said Ranjan, who is working as an additional professor at the Medicine Department.
“This virus is going to stay for some time. We all have to accept, adapt and move ahead with it. Life cannot come to a halt. When you accept a fact it becomes easier for one to deal with such situations – that’s the solution for a pandemic situation. The disease was unknown. We all were unprepared, but there was no other way but to find a path to survive,” he added.
Never for a moment, Ranjan, who lives with his family on the AIIMS campus, backed off from his duty. “Initially, my wife and I were apprehensive. We have two children and had reasons to be worried, but once I wore that PPE suit, there was no look back. Beg a doctor, this is the time for duty, cannot run away,” he stated.
‘Had never declared anyone dead’
“Being a psychiatric, I am far away from registering any death…there is less mortality in the department. From there, I was posted to the ICU ward where most of them are critical patients. I had never declared anyone dead in three years, but now I am issuing three death certificates in a day…,” said Dr Pooja Shakya, a senior resident at the psychiatry department, AIIMS.
The hardest part, Shakya added, was giving the news of a patient’s death to the family members.
“They (patients) are away from families…they cannot speak to them and are always have a fear of losing their life. And unfortunately, every doctor can’t look after each patient individually,” she said.
Shakya was posted in the ICU ward in June when cases were rising and so was Delhi’s temperature. It was the peak of the summer season.
“I would wear spectacles and over that, use a goggle and face shield. For the first one or two hours, I would remain blank…there was hardly any clear visibility owing to heavy sweating, but we have to continue our work. Then the whole schedule takes a toll physically… For six hours, we cannot eat or drink. Even after the shift is over, we cannot immediately have a meal, we need to take a shower and hygiene ourselves. So, there is almost a gap of 8-10 hours between meals,” she added.
‘There is always a risk’
It has been merely three weeks since Dr Saksham Mittal, a senior resident at the orthopaedics department, Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, was appointed in the COVID19 duty for the first time.
“There have been so many cases of HCWs getting infected; over 100 doctors have succumbed to the virus while being on duty. So, no matter how much I prepare myself, I am still risking my life every day…” said Mittal. Even though Mittal was not directly engaged in COVID duties previously, he noted that the risk of contamination is equally high in routine surgeries.