I am a Kashmiri origin medical specialist, trained, working, and practicing intensive care medicine in Europe for the last 13 years. The current COVID 19 pandemic has affected every walk of life, let it be personal or professional, local or global. Doctors have had to play a leading role during the pandemic for the last 18 months and have been deemed as health care heroes and rightly so. All around the world doctors were short of numbers and resources to manage such a huge influx of infected patients including Europe, America, or a country like India. It has been challenging to work with all these limitations besides having no definite treatment for COVID 19 and still managing the patients while living up to the expectations of our patients.
When this pandemic started in 2019 in China people expected it to be limited to China but when it landed at European doorsteps starting from Italy every healthcare professional started to take it seriously. In our hospital all the healthcare professionals along with other staff like managers, administrators, IT professionals, and Construction workers formulated a plan to deal with expected huge influx of the patients.
The structure of the hospital was changed, all open spaces were converted to isolation spaces to make sure that there was no mixing up of patients, oxygen supply and the inbuilt piped supply was increased to meet expected demands, all healthcare professionals were trained in putting up and taking off personal protective equipment in a safe manner, the capacity of hospital and Intensive care was increased, the nursing staff was relocated and trained to meet intensive care demands, all other medical and surgical consultants were trained to deliver critical care to sick patients, all the required equipment was bought, professionals were trained and it was ready to be used. The overall diagnostic capacity including radiology and laboratory was increased, and above all the capacity of the Morgues to deal with the higher influx of dead patients was also increased. All preparation was done within the time span of 45 days starting from February 2020. Our first patient infected with COVID 19 was admitted in March 2020 and since then we have been managing patients through different waves as they call it.
Personally, being intensive care medicine consultant, I have been very busy looking after all variety of patients, moderate or seriously sick. It has been particularly challenging to live away from your parents and other loved ones for the last 18 months without having to see them physically. I always made sure that I was in touch with my parents as much as I could but I would leave no stone unturned to explain to my parents to isolate at home while following all health care guidelines which they followed very meticulously and sincerely from the beginning of this pandemic.
On the fateful night of 24th April 2021, my father got sick at home and had to visit a super specialty hospital, SKIMS, for some medical problem. On arrival to the hospital, he was placed in the emergency ward where there is no segregation of any patients whether COVID or non-COVID. My fathers COVID 19 rapid antigen test was negative but still there was no segregation and he was placed next to COVID positive patients. He got his COVID 19 PCR test done, which took 12-16 hours and it was negative as well, during all this time he was placed with COVID-19 patients. Finally he was transferred to a medical Non-COVID ward and discharged home within 3 days time.
I had to leave for home to see my father while India was badly hit by COVID. It seemed like a suicide mission, my colleagues packing my suitcase and bags with all the medical equipment which included ventilator, PPE, medications, IV cannulas, nasogastric tubes, or catheters. I was ready to fly for 30 hours to my home, I took no chances, came dressed in full personal protective equipment all the way, and arrived home with two negative COVID 19 PCR tests. Bearing in mind that my father was placed next to COVID positive patients in the hospital for 12-16 hours I had advised my family to keep wearing masks and follow full hand hygiene and limit the number of people to visit my father. On my way home I heard over the phone that my father was spiking temperature on Day 5 of his discharge from the hospital so I had advised him to take the COVID 19 PCR test. Within hours of my arrival came the awaited PCR test result of my father and to no surprise it was positive. Having known my father, his physical health, my COVID experience and keeping in view the local healthcare setup, I knew exactly that my father was not meant to fight this disease. Being a doctor I had to pretend to be strong and prepare my family for the worse and we as a family decided that we should limit the treatment to home only and not let him suffer towards the end of his life. My father passed away within two weeks of my arrival home and as if my world ended there.
Since my arrival I have talked to a lot of people and medical professionals around. I have come to realize that a lot of patients got infected with COVID 19 from the hospital only which could have been easily prevented had our healthcare professionals and administrators planned it well. There should be no excuse at this stage when we are almost 18 months into COVID pandemic to cause outbreaks in our healthcare institutions and add to the suffering of already suffering masses.
A lot of medical guidelines being followed by my colleague healthcare professionals in the valley are totally not evidence based and quite damaging to the patients, be it the dosage of steroids used, anti-coagulation guidelines or the antibiotics used, they are clearly against the international or even the ICMR norms. Blaming black fungus for our white coat mismanagement is no surprise.
My humble request to all people involved in providing healthcare to our population is to look back and see how we can improve the care provided to our loved ones and prevent the unnecessary suffering and remember that today’s healthcare providers could be tomorrow’s unfortunate patients.
Dr. Sheeba Hakak Consultant Anesthesiologist and Intensivist (ROI).