It occurred
to me this morning that an Anaesthetist colleague of mine, DR SV, must have some
idea of the COVID duty. Turned out that she had just returned from doing her
posting of the COVID duty and talking to her today was a revelation.
Her initial
reaction upon being served the posting was of being confused and she called her
classmates for more information. Someone told her that Physicians and
Anaesthetists were to be called first and therefore she had got her posting
now. When she went there, the treatment centre had not even started
functioning. The first 2 days were just spent assessing the facilities and
requisitioning equipment. So far being done by non- medical people, she had to step
in to advise them and they cooperated whole- heartedly. They began receiving
patients on day 3. Patients who had improved and needed further care were being
referred here and the facility filled up quickly. They were a group of herself
and 3 Physicians functioning as team leaders of the 1000 bedded facility. Other
team members were fresh medical graduates, fresh nursing graduates and newly
recruited helpers. So the team leaders also worked on assigning duties, training
the staff and setting up of systems to implement treatment protocols.
Clinical
management consisted of a hub and spoke model with tech assistance. Patients
being distributed in about 28 wards- the ground staff would be assigned to their
care dressed in complete PPE. Team leaders were required to take clinical
rounds in PPE and monitor continuously through remote feed given by cctv in
each ward and continuous input through phones- at that time they did not need
to be in PPE. Any indication of patient worsening or clinical doubt, they had
to don the PPE and step in again. Dr SV mentioned that it was continuous work
and significantly stressful due to the continuous monitoring and talking to
give inputs. Considering that each dr was seeing 250 patients, this is really a
feat of medicine!
The physical
experience of wearing the PPE was very unpleasant- she being posted during the
worst weather weeks of end May- starting June. Since then the weather has
improved considerably. Everyone was cooperative and calm and went about their
work diligently. The arrangements for healthcare workers were good. There was
no shortage of PPE and the they were of high quality. Arrangements for stay,
food and transport were comfortable. She did not choose to stay over. But
others who did were not reporting any problems
with the accommodation provided, she said. And the administration has
taken all documents to process her remuneration, so it will be coming.
As I spoke
to Dr SV, I realized that she went in there with a good attitude. Considering that
she arrived when nothing was in place yet, she didn’t think of complaining. She
just saw what was needed to be done- and did it. She and her team organized the
place and had it up and running. Her whole description of the experience was
very matter-of-fact and completely devoid of any complaints. In fact, she
expressed great satisfaction that she could contribute. Her concerns mainly
those of a working mother- how can I be looking into the kids online school,
will he be ok, etc? In closing she mentioned that she had not looked into the
matter of the salary as yet- she considered that this was her duty and she may not
even pursue it much.
Since 4th
May, when the COVID DUTY notification appeared, I have been getting lot of negative
feedback about how things were going. Some of the descriptions were downright
scary and I was thinking if its even safe for Doctors anymore. I called Dr SV
with these fears in my mind and came back inspired.
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