Docs’ anxiety is never greater than when one of their own is afflicted
TNN | Mar 30, 2020, 04.58 AM IST
Bengaluru: Wash your hands. I’ve heard that phrase so many times these last couple of months that one more time is a drum stick clanging against my ear. Wash hands, sanitize. Repeat. Once every half-hour. Or maybe twice. With a doctor for a husband, you cannot be prepared enough in these Covid-19 times. Often it jars, sometimes it irritates, but that’s only one half of the story.
Doctors and health workers, whether their area of expertise is clinical, surgical or care-giving, are at the frontline of this battle. Before them is the patient who could be the carrier of the unseen enemy. They are governed by a guideline, but need to work with a certain sensitivity, at times with gloves and a mask, at others with make-do options in times of serious shortage of protective gear. Every patient, sniffling or coughing, is told to stay three feet way. “I don’t want you to catch any infection,” the docs tell you. Like they are immune to it.
For every smile sparked in the ward, for every word of hope exchanged in passing, there’s a look of despair at home, where unspoken fears express itself. Perhaps not so much in words – except with a fellow professional who has an equal understanding of a desperately dark time – but through other tangibles. The phone lines don’t stop ringing, mostly from senior citizens with a cold and a fever, who’d rather self-quarantine than wait for tests in hospital corridors. Calls of aches and pains are almost music to the ears – after all, they can be looked at, dealt with.
The anxiety is never greater than when one of their own is afflicted. A batchmate, also a friend, caught the infection from a patient and is in the ICU along with his family. The medical community is a tight-knit one, the bonds as strong as they are deep. The younger ones keep the high-risk older category away from the action, slapping them with curfews, forcing them to stay away from work, taking the knocks on the chin. So, while the rest of the world works from home, they leave for the front each day fully aware that, should the situation get worse, they might have to bed in in their workplace.
The give-and-take balance, sadly, is skewed. You want them to fight for you, but you don’t want them around you otherwise. When they return home after a long, draining day, they encounter hostile house owners who want them out because they are high-risk. Because they are the visible enemy. Worse, they have to deal with idiocy and misplaced bravado. ‘Lick a toilet seat, contaminate public transport with saliva’. Or, how about ‘Let's join hands, go out and sneeze with open mouth in public. Spread the virus.’ Really?
The carelessness of those they’re fighting for is quickly brushed aside as they brace to prepare with care. Best and worst case scenarios for India, 14,000 or 400 million infected, are just numbers in a milieu where hope is a scarce commodity. Against all odds, when you attempt to buoy spirit with an ‘it’s just a virus’, it’s a met with a nod that says, ‘not just’.
Every evening marks a quiet return home. No sit-down to even take off the footwear, no words exchanged before a shower. There’s the responsibility of protecting family after working to cure patients. These are challenging times for the health worker. If you want to really clap for him, do so from the confines of your home. Preferably with a prayer. They need it now more than ever, for you as much as for themselves.
TNN | Mar 30, 2020, 04.58 AM IST
Bengaluru: Wash your hands. I’ve heard that phrase so many times these last couple of months that one more time is a drum stick clanging against my ear. Wash hands, sanitize. Repeat. Once every half-hour. Or maybe twice. With a doctor for a husband, you cannot be prepared enough in these Covid-19 times. Often it jars, sometimes it irritates, but that’s only one half of the story.
Doctors and health workers, whether their area of expertise is clinical, surgical or care-giving, are at the frontline of this battle. Before them is the patient who could be the carrier of the unseen enemy. They are governed by a guideline, but need to work with a certain sensitivity, at times with gloves and a mask, at others with make-do options in times of serious shortage of protective gear. Every patient, sniffling or coughing, is told to stay three feet way. “I don’t want you to catch any infection,” the docs tell you. Like they are immune to it.
For every smile sparked in the ward, for every word of hope exchanged in passing, there’s a look of despair at home, where unspoken fears express itself. Perhaps not so much in words – except with a fellow professional who has an equal understanding of a desperately dark time – but through other tangibles. The phone lines don’t stop ringing, mostly from senior citizens with a cold and a fever, who’d rather self-quarantine than wait for tests in hospital corridors. Calls of aches and pains are almost music to the ears – after all, they can be looked at, dealt with.
The anxiety is never greater than when one of their own is afflicted. A batchmate, also a friend, caught the infection from a patient and is in the ICU along with his family. The medical community is a tight-knit one, the bonds as strong as they are deep. The younger ones keep the high-risk older category away from the action, slapping them with curfews, forcing them to stay away from work, taking the knocks on the chin. So, while the rest of the world works from home, they leave for the front each day fully aware that, should the situation get worse, they might have to bed in in their workplace.
The give-and-take balance, sadly, is skewed. You want them to fight for you, but you don’t want them around you otherwise. When they return home after a long, draining day, they encounter hostile house owners who want them out because they are high-risk. Because they are the visible enemy. Worse, they have to deal with idiocy and misplaced bravado. ‘Lick a toilet seat, contaminate public transport with saliva’. Or, how about ‘Let's join hands, go out and sneeze with open mouth in public. Spread the virus.’ Really?
The carelessness of those they’re fighting for is quickly brushed aside as they brace to prepare with care. Best and worst case scenarios for India, 14,000 or 400 million infected, are just numbers in a milieu where hope is a scarce commodity. Against all odds, when you attempt to buoy spirit with an ‘it’s just a virus’, it’s a met with a nod that says, ‘not just’.
Every evening marks a quiet return home. No sit-down to even take off the footwear, no words exchanged before a shower. There’s the responsibility of protecting family after working to cure patients. These are challenging times for the health worker. If you want to really clap for him, do so from the confines of your home. Preferably with a prayer. They need it now more than ever, for you as much as for themselves.
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