Doctors as we all know in Covid-19 times are seen
as nothing short of miracle workers, God's own army of saviours working round
the clock and delivering service that is not just irreplaceable but also
extremely critical to fight the deadly virus.
Doctors assigned duties at the hospitals,
Covid-wards or blocks are worked to exhaustion and are doing their best to
fight the virus that has potentially altered the way we live and interact as
humans.
There are however another set of doctors who are
equally adept, capable and are liable to the same work ethic, and above all
needed by their peers in these times of crisis.
These private dispensaries and clinics are the
local health system arms that could potentially detect early symptoms and
advise patients on precautions and also react to a major local breakout even
before the hospitals or health systems are overburdened by the number of
cases.
The practitioners as people affected point out, are
bound by Hippocratic oath.
The Hippocratic Oath is an oath of ethics
historically taken by physicians. It is one of the most widely known of Greek
medical texts. In its original form, it requires a new physician to swear, by several
healing gods, to uphold specific ethical standards.
Hippocratic oath binds all medical practitioners to
treat and follow the ethical standards of not turning a deaf ear to a patient,
if within acceptable capacity.
Now a problem we are posed with is when these
private clinics and dispensaries are shut and even for minor medical
assistance, the hospitals are being crowded by patients.
These private doctors say they are ill equipped to
handle Covid-19 cases, lack of PPE (personal protective equipment), lack of any test kits to early detect Covid –
even for asymptomatic cases are some of the media through which these clinics
could function and effectively give that support to the hospitals that is a
burning need of the hour, especially with the cases going up every day.
It is a situation where the doctors are not having
any means to fight the disease or help the patients that would come to their
clinics for treatment or advice.
We could have some sort of direction and also test kits/PPE
and detailed notifications from the health ministry to strengthen &
leverage the network of clinics + dispensaries and this needs to be done soon,
to help these address the situation at hand and decentralise some part of early
treatment or educating the patients rather than immediately pressurising the
health systems of government and private hospitals.
It is very easy to point out what is to be done by
these private doctors, dispensaries, clinics, the gaps in action & their
irresponsible behaviour in these testing times; especially when the bravery of
health workers is in front of us as an example; but the needed resources are critical
to strengthen this network of clinics & bring them up to speed to tackle
the situation in part; and that we are so losing out on now in managing
Covid-19 patients.
The primary culprit is the government of the day! It's their duty to make protection and testing kits available to doctors, police and garbage pickers, on a priority basis. But the governments and many public institutions are busy over ways to make liquor distribution easy.
ReplyDeleteHeights of mismanagement can be anticipated by an example of Noida city, where I live. Here, for an approximate population of 60 lac, testing, for covid19, has been done on less than 10000.