Story of covid duty of a doctor :
Ever since the news that I have been posted in COVID ward duty in the private college where I’m pursuing my PG degree came out, I was bit relaxed. I wanted to be a part of this pandemic directly by helping it reduce or treat a case amongst the millions it has conquered and is still going strong.
I had previously been in a clinical OPD setup treating alleged victims.This was a new and better challenge than what I was doing in my department, being in my desk, searching for articles to add a line or two for my thesis literature. So on the D-day , I was getting myself warmed up with reassuring thoughts and stuff because not everything goes as per planned.
So my previous shift duty PG called me to inform that she can’t tolerate in the PPE Kit and it’s making her giddy. Not a good way to welcome to the duty, but yeah I took it head on and I stepped in.I went straight ahead to Donning room, thinking in my mind like I’m pulling a Batman suit and fighting the bad guys. I followed the order of donning and by the time I came to the part to wear head cover , I was starting to feel claustrophobic already because, literally there is no air to breathe already and, my respiratory rate went up above 30.
Anxiety, doom, irritation and frustration were all forged into one helluva emotion and I was facing it with every breath and in between. This happened just with donning and as I entered the covid special ward, I made it to the nurses station. Seeing fellow PPE kits was bit soothing but it was not the time to throw a smile, instead go beserk knowing all the history of all the cases from minute one because my duty consultant had called me already asking about blood glucose levels for two patients not just at the instant but since yesterday.
For people outside medical profession , it might seem like an error code you can google and resolve. Sorry my friends, it ain’t easy in a case sheet running 50 pages with God knows where the page 7 is, probably after 20th or 27th. So just with the mindset I stepped in. This kind of scenario kind of tipped me off to the raging peaks of emotions and I’m going breathless with no air to breathe within the sack tied around my neck !
So this work I said above is easy for a medico to find in 2 mins in a normal setting or if the case sheet is written well and if in proper order in even less time. But right with my cocktail of an emotion and hypoxic mind, it took me an hour going through each and every page , raging every minute about the order of the case sheet and amidst this the sweat train has started to run possibly in all directions in my PPE Kit and I can literally feel like, ‘sweat logged inside a sack and with no air to breathe’. On top of this I should get blood glucose values, find a few admission dates for few patients , go check the spo2 for everyone and remove a catheter and put notes for everyone and know about the entire medical history of the patients in my ward.
The entire 6 hours passed somehow, I was draining off energy and felt like I was centimeters away from the burning sun. The first 15 minutes, seemed like life on a miller planet but I was facing it in earth perspectiv( interstellar reference ). The next one hour was almost full of thoughts, did I come this far and with motive to treat the deadly disease and fall short and die in a PPE Kit suffocated.
Next two hours , I wanted to scream out loud and throw a tantrum and break things off the wall. That was the kind of range running through me. The next 3 hours , I came to a mindset, let whatever happen but I’m not dying suffocated in this suit and kinda took off the face shield and the hoodie of the PPE suit. I just sat down below a fan for 15 mins, drank some water, gather some energy and come finish a very little work. Sometimes it was unsuccessful. I would head back to the room beside the nurses station and control my anger and feel the ‘worst possible fucking way’.
The time when my shift ended , I didn’t want it to end , I just wanted to die.
I was indeed mentally. Even if I got paid a lakh to do this job for a week, I’d run a million miles away from the job. To all those idiots and brats thinking doctors are looting money at this moment in lakhs , just try being in PPE Kit for an hour, I’m damn sure you’ll cut your tongue to ever curse a good doctor again.
The end to the shift was even more worse. I was on my way to a nearby ward to help with increased case load. I was taking incharge of two cubicles with 6 patients there and a patient, obese and totally asymptomatic, into his 4 th day of testing positive and admission, had sats dropping to 92/93 % from his previous recorded 98 % room air. I was making a note of it and documenting it in the case sheet and wanted to cross check with another pulse oxymeter and I was on my way to fetch one from the nurses station in this ward and as I make my way to the nurses station , a horror sight beckoned.
I couldn’t really believe what I was seeing. It was straight out of a horror movie , where a person after getting murder is, wrapped in a wrap and dragged off the floor and the same scenario was happening before me but a different scenario to it but definetly a person in PPE dragged off the floor by two other. It’s surely not hypoglycemia kicking in, but as I came nearer, it was real, a sister was dragged off from a nearby cubicle to nurses station by duty doctor and another nurse. I screamed in a muffled manner with the N95 and ran to them. It seems the nurse has fainted being in the suit for long and we tried waking her with water and she responded a bit and then took CBG. It’s surely due to claustrophobic sensation and being trapped in this suit of hypoxic planet.
After making her feel ok, asked her to doff and go grab some fresh air. I went to go see the patient that I was suspecting with low saturation. I finished the notes and this time a patient was screaming from a cubicle. I got irritated why he is shouting like that , like as if hell has opened up in earth. As I went and saw, deja vu. Another nurse has fainted and same maneuver happened and now we are two down in no matter of time. Still we can manage and so work resumed. But each person in the ward has to do the work of two amidst this heck of emotions being trapped in this suit and a river of sweat bathing. I informed about the low saturation of that patient to that ward duty doctor and made my way to my ward. Just as I made my way to the ward , two patients were in bound and I was going through the entire medical history and getting a brief info about the patients ready, to convey to my consultant. Another wheelchair came with another nurse fainted from the nearby ward.
Now the number is 3 and it’s about to get to 4, as the duty doctor from the nearby ward too couldn’t cope up and now two wards are under the control of one duty doctor and 2 nurses. It was a pure test of emotions and will power. This is just one story of a duty doctor in a single shift. Many a things go beyond the from scenes you see. It’s not easy, being a white coat and with this pandemic, god knows how many years are shortened in expected life expectancy of a medico which is already shortened by 5 years than normal public.
We are at the most risk of exposure, we are the helm of criticism from whatever goes wrong and we are at the peak of emotions having to be away from family and friends. All you can do is sip down a coffee , snacks and your favorite recipe from your mom, be logged in from your lap, see to your work and rant shit about doctors and the pay they get and we should be doing service free and stuff.
While you guys will change companies every 2 years for a higher pay and have food cards providing 3000 to 5000 rupees monthly to cover your food expenses and stuff, we don’t get any such benefits and just that we get to wear a white coat, doesn’t mean food just crawls into our tables and petrol fills in automatically in our cars and two wheelers.
For you government will clear off your arrears because you are stressed at this times of a pandemic , whereas a medico can never dream of such promises or anything happening like that. So before you open your toxic mouth ranting shit about us, think if you are worthy of criticizing us. We doctors tend to make mistakes , like you run wrong error codes and we can only be criticized by our unit chiefs and not you, who google,” are vaccinations necessary ?”
At the end of the duty , I came up to a mind , I’m not wearing the protectives and even if I contract this disease, it’s not a big deal than being in that mindset in that suit and resumed treating you fellow public with utmost consideration. I’m not getting paid for this shift of mine, or it’s a compulsion for me. I wanted to do justice to my degree and the Hippocratic oath and I’ll continue to do so.
This line from Dark Knight suits aptly.
"Either you die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain”.
