They are right at the front, fighting to ensure their patients get better. Spending hours and sometimes days in the hospital or at the care centre to ensure things get better. Sometimes it does not and it can be tough for everyone to handle the emotions involved in such situations. Death was something everyone in the medical community had to deal with everyday. For doctors and nurses it was one of the aspects of life during Covid that had to be dealt with sensitivity. However, how did they feel dealing with extreme emotions every day?
Pratik
Jain a doctor with a leading hospital said it helped him build resilience
dealing with such situations every day. He said “It has helped me gain the
power to bounce back. We all experience tough emotions, we see death up close
and personal. In addition I am also a team leader and it was important to
maintain the morale of my team. Yes I had people above me but I had to ensure
people felt right. It is not easy to wrap a body. Relatives crying can all be
traumatic. This experience has made me very alert and I can now react to any
situation in a manner that will be helpful.” He however admitted he suffered
from a mild case of PSTD or Posttraumatic stress disorder which he admitted to
feeling when he entered the hospital and had received some counseling. It is a
tough life without a doubt.
Dr Rylind Pereira who
has been a doctor for three years said this experience had marked him for life.
He said “I will remember this experience all my life. It was stressful watching
people struggling to live. It was traumatic for the patients and the doctors.
There was no option, we had to cope. We had to save lives. The mortality rate
during the second wave was very high and this was due to the Delta variant.
Patient’s entire families were getting infected and quite a few of the members
would die. It was very tough, no doubt.”
Dr Mihir Choudhary who
was in charge of a Covid treatment centre at Campal ground which was absolutely
free said it felt good to be a doctor. He said “We did not charge a penny and
we did not lose a patient. We treated 80 patients and it felt so good to watch
them walk out feeling healthy. We were a group of doctors who did this and we
felt happy doing this. It was a terrible situation and we did what we had to
do”.
The very experienced Dr
Shekhar Salkar said it did not change his life but he felt frustrated he could
not attend camps or go out with his wife. He said “I used to go out regularly,
but that has stopped now. I was working on Covid and so was my wife. We were busy.
We did not go out of the state or for that matter the country which used to be
normal for us every six months. Maybe in the next six months, I will be able to
do so. I have to live my life.”
For Dr Kedar Redkar it
was pretty close and personal. He had an experience with a family member, a
neighbor getting the virus and yes watching people in the hospital struggling
with their lives. He said “It has had a very big impact on my perception of
life when you see people use their gold to ensure their relatives get treated.
People go to any lengths to ensure they get a bed in the hospital. People going
the extra mile to save their loved ones, it touched me. I now try to listen to
their grievances, I try to be more sensitive. I am a different person pre and post
Covid. My perception of life has changed”.
It was never going to be easy and these
doctors did what they had to do. They may have not had to battle for their own
lives but this experience has touched them and made them different people.