By- Donn Morgan Kipgen
“There’s nothing to fear but fear itself.” : Teddy Roosevelt (Former US President)
We all know what Hippocratic Oath is & so are the guidelines laid down by Florence Nightingale during the Crimean War. They are the 10 Commandments & the Lord’s Prayer for medical sciences. Being at physical risks while performing one’s bounden duty under any dangerous circumstance is the professional hazard accepted by all doctors & nurses. Tragically, in Covid-19-ravaged India, esp. in Manipur, some doctors & nurses broke the laws laid down for medical science’s fraternity. This resulted in the untimely & inhuman deaths of lots of patients over the past 4 months due to the fear of #Cvd19 by some medical institutions & their staff members. What a calamity!
Preventive measures pertaining to #Cvd19 are known & followed to the last details. However, that means little to comfort the traumatised medical fraternity. What I really know about the Coronavirus is limited to 3 (three) years of studying about Flu/Influenza (also caused by Coronavirus) &other contagious diseases & lessons on First-Aid treatments during school days in Shillong. It was all about learning the symptoms, cures & preventive measures to deal with all those diseases. That was quite helpful later on & till now. It’s worth mentioning that ever since I was being discharged from hospital to die at home when I was 3 months old, I’ve never ever been hospitalised. Blessed as I’ve always been, I treated myself in all kinds of sickness & God helps me healed my wounds, my fractured & dislocated bones without medical assistances. I also feel sad that I’m very much misunderstood person for my own actions. And I always wonder where & what my” Achilles Heel” might be.
It’d be most desirable for the state medical fraternity to conduct a full seminar or webinar on the origin, nature, symptoms, cures, preventive measures & emergency treatments of #Cvd19 patients. There has been improvement out of sheer necessity & direct experiences but that’s not good enough to successfully tackle the #Cvd19 crisis in Manipur. It’s like the military maxim, “Know Your Enemy”. A policeman who died of first classic #Cvd19 case in Manipur was wrongly attributed to Pneumonia. Some even blamed the death due to lack of timely oxygen supply(ventilator). Full-blown patients often reacted like that before their painful deaths. That’s why the medical name of #Cvd19 is called” Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus2 (SARS-CoV2)”. Remember the first cases of #Cvd19 in Wuhan was dubbed as “Unknown Pneumonia” or, as other Chinese doctors, then, termed it thus: “Wuhan Pneumonia”. The first known case of #Cvd19 was recorded on 17th Nov, 2019.
Nowadays, it’s a grotesque procedure to show #Cvd19’s Negative Certificate before being admitted to both Govt & private hospitals. It’s just like the Legal’s No Objection Certificate(NOC). But that takes lots of money, resources & very limited avenues to obtain such Covid-free certificate. How could a person, esp. from the poorer sections of society, suffering from sudden & serious illness or accident victims manage to get a swift #Cvd19 test certificate before being taken into hospitals for emergency treatments? There’re no #Cvd19 testing kits in local shops & stores to obtain such “NOCs” for free! Besides, testing involves an official procedure & comes at very high price tag, ranging from Rs.1500 to Rs. 2000, to make the matter worst for the patient’s party. Like hand-sanitizers’ bussiness, Testing of #Cvd19 has also a much profitable business. This scam is ridiculous to say the least. For the daily wage earners, such kind of money is hard to come by because of Lockdown Curfew for nearly 5 months. Spare a thought for the poor patients who came from far-flung places only to die at the very gates of safety& recovery, after being denied hospitalisation for the lack of Covid-free certificate! Such unprofessional activity amounts to criminal offence Period.
If medical-staffs are afraid of possible #Cvd19 infection, What’s use of the PPEs & hand-sanitizers? Why are they being paid fat salaries for refusing to do their bounden duties? It’s the foremost duty of doctors & nurses to calm down & assure their patients, whatsoever the gravity of the situation might be! As of now, things seem to go the other way around, the opposite way: to calm down & assure doctors & nurses. Trying to avoid professional hazard pointedly amounts to criminal acts. If they followed the safety measures to the fullest, nothing wrong would come to them. Could armed forces personnel refuse to patrol insurgency-infested area out of fear? Could they refuse to save hostage(s) just because of the fire-powers of the insurgents or kidnappers? No, they have to do it since they are being trained, armed, deployed & paid for by the Govt. It’s never an option but a bounden duty. Earn the honor & respect by doing the right thing as specifically trained, disregarding the risks involved. In medical fraternity, the physical well-being of a patient always counts first. Even the kind & assuring words of doctors & nurses are like psychological medicines for patients. They need to be given the mental & physical strength to boost their immune systems. After all, most of the medicines are given to help a person’s immune system fight the disease, & not for healing the illness itself. There’s a term called” Self-Sacrifice”, which needs no scientific explanation.
Hitherto, doctors & nurses are very much respected, trusted & honored, but the universal perception is beginning to change with the mighty onslaught of #Cvd19.To maintain status quo on that honorable perception is the need of the hour. Let not the good citizens fight both #Cvd19&medical high-handedness at the same at this critical juncture. Do unto others as you’d like others to do to you. As the saying goes,” God sees the Truth but waits”.
Now, another problem comes up with the official idea of giving Home-Quarantine to Asymptomatic patients. Such persons are not known to infect other persons so far. This is one most unpleasant thing we all have to live with. To overcome it is our collective duty.
