On the outskirts of Bargarh town, the non-descript Katapali village suddenly grabbed headlines out of nowhere. Katapali reported its first coronavirus infection on June 16. Two days later, the 76-year-old infected patient died and was later found to be a super spreader. As over 200 positive cases were reported in subsequent days, Katapali was declared a hotspot, the entire village notified a containment zone and barricaded.
This is when Dr Lotus Mishra faced a tough task and she stepped up. From convincing people to get tested, propagate safety measures, end social ostracisation, to ensuring isolation and timely treatment of patients, she has been at the forefront of Covid-19 fight.
The Ayush doctor - posted at the Katapali Community Health Centre (CHC) under Bargarh Sadar block since 2018 - acknowledges nothing has been more challenging than the Covid-19 pandemic in her 12-year career.
After the outbreak, Dr Mishra was entrusted with the duty of monitoring the health of people coming to the temporary medical centre and managing the flu clinic set up at the gram panchayat to identify people with Covid symptoms. Apart from the regular six hours of work at the CHC, she was on the field for Covid duty for another eight hours in a day.
She was then assigned the duty of visiting every house in the village and getting people tested. That was easier said than done. She faced resistance from villagers who were angry over being confined in the containment zone and losing their livelihood. Only a few cooperated. Undeterred, she continued her work in the village and in the process, got infected too. She was tested positive on June 30 during a regular check-up of healthcare staff.
Asymptomatic, she was admitted to the Covid-19 hospital, and subsequently, her house was sealed and the neighbourhood barricaded. “The events that followed after I tested positive were agonising. Leaving behind my family, especially my three-year-old daughter, was not easy. The first few days in the hospital were stressful”, she says. To overcome anxiety and use the time productively, the doctor attended webinars on Covid-19 almost every day during her hospitalisation.
Discharged after a week, she was asked to stay in the home quarantine for two weeks and joined work on July 21. However, a new challenge awaited her at Katapali where things had turned worse. Villagers were infuriated after living under a containment zone for more than a month and did not want to get tested. There were instances when villagers did not allow the health team to visit households for health survey and even gheraoed health workers.
Realising that it would be tough dealing with villagers directly, the doctor individually reached out to her regular patients in the zone and convinced them to get tested. “Since they trusted her, they got tested realising that it was for their own good. I asked them to convince their near ones to come forward for testing. The process of awareness of testing through community members was very effective. People voluntarily agreed to get tested”, she recalls. Until the containment was lifted, over 3,000 samples were tested in Katapali village having a population of 5,205.
Currently, Dr Mishra is in-charge of monitoring all the patients under home-isolation in the rural areas of Sadar block. Like doctors and health staff across the country who face ostracism, she and her family members continue to suffer social isolation because of her job. “People stay away from us because I come in contact with hundreds of infected patients every day”, she says.
Having faced challenges since the virus outbreak, the doctor says Covid-19 pandemic has been a learning curve. “Apart from learning about the virus and ways to deal with it, the pandemic taught me that it is important to remain positive towards life”, she says, adding that living with the virus is the new normal and people should realise that they are now responsible for their own safety.
In the current situation, she says, wearing a mask, maintaining respiratory and hand hygiene, keeping a safe distance are the only measures to stay safe from coronavirus and lead normal lives. “We cannot get rid of the virus until a vaccine is developed. So we have to practice Covid-19 safety guidelines whenever we step out”, says the doctor.