Coronavirus is a sneaky disease that no matter how careful someone is, they can get it. It is usual for doctors who treat patients who have or may have the virus, to be afraid. Fear, to a certain extent, can protect you, so you have to find the balance between fear and doing your job well. As much as they train to deal with severe conditions, what is happening now is entirely unprecedented. They are forced to fear each other but also to be isolated from their families and friends. Learning how many health workers have died, they are right to think they might be the next.
Physical and psychological pressure can lead them to make wrong decisions and actions, both for the patients and for their own health. It is proven that no state, no matter how organized, could have foreseen a mass turnout of patients with serious problems, especially respiratory problems. Although most hospitals are equipped with means of dealing with severe cases under normal conditions, the pressure from several seriously ill patients is such, that there is insufficient means and nursing staff to treat patients. There are shortages of machinery, masks, gloves, uniforms. Excessive exposure of health staff to patients with the disease along with physical and mental fatigue automatically leads them to the highest risk group to become ill. Hundreds of doctors and nurses around the world have lost their lives in the battle with COVID-19 trying to abide by their vow.
In many occasions doctors, under time pressure, are forced to decide who to give a chance to fight for their lives. Unfortunately, the elders in many cases are left to fight this alone. The mental burden that these people are asked to lift and manage is unreal and it is also one that will leave them with marks that will take much longer to heal than what masks leave.
According to this research (https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.20.20025338v2.full.pdf) performed at the ground zero of the pandemic :
Half of participants (50.4%) had symptoms of depression, while 44.6% had anxiety symptoms, 34% had symptoms of insomnia, and 71.5% showed signs of distress.
Info collected from (https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/covid19-doctors-ptsd-1.5507548)
D'Ambrosio said: "If we understand the patient has a severe health issue to the point of having no chance [to live] and we need to give the bed or divert resources to someone who has more chances to survive, [then] this is a choice that — despite being ethically hard to accept — from a clinical point of view can be done to give the possibility to survive [to someone] compared to someone who would have zero chance."
"Anesthetists – despite them playing it down a little bit on the media – have to choose who they attach to the machine for ventilation, and who they won’t attach to the machines"
"I pulled out the phone and called her on video. They said goodbye. Shortly after she left. By now I have a long list of video calls. I call it the farewell list. I hope they give us mini iPads, three or four would be enough, not to let them die alone."
"There are no more shifts, no more hours. Social life is suspended for us. We no longer see our families for fear of infecting them. Some of us have already become infected despite the protocols.
https://time.com/5807918/health-care-workers-selfies-coronavirus-covid-19/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/03/opinion/coronavirus-icu-nurse.html?auth=login-google&referringSource=articleShare
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