Hospitals will have to gear up to have a separate wing with exclusive entry and exits or standalone buildings for treatment of Coronavirus patients, since it is not advisable to have other critical patients under the same roof due to high infectivity
With the worldwide outbreak of covid-19 resulting in a complete lockdown in most countries, it has resulted in hospitals shutting down routine outpatient departments (OPD) and planned surgeries. While it was hoped that a few weeks into the lockdown, the situation would improve in India, in reality the disease has only grown exponentially due to various underlying reasons.
As of now, the number of positive cases in the country has swelled to 1,06,886 and the number of casualties has touched the 3,303 mark. This has resulted in the delayed opening up of regular healthcare facilities for non-covid diseases, dealing an additional blow to a set of population already reeling under economic hardship brought on by the extended lockdown and the resultant salary cuts and job losses.
At present, most hospitals are open for emergency services only. Government and private sector hospitals are reluctant to start regular OPD services fearing the spread of the Coronavirus, as patients and their families would crowd into the treatment facility, making social distancing difficult to manage.
However, one has to be cognisant of the fact that many people suffering from cataract, cancer, physically disabling spine problems, pain due to kidney or gall bladder stones and many other illnesses have been denied treatment for far too long as these diseases do not need immediate and urgent attention under normal circumstances. However, if one has a potentially life-threatening, disabling disease or pain, one always looks for early treatment and relief. For the patient, it is an urgent need even if it doesn’t classify as an emergency.
Covid-19 is here to stay and we will have to live with it. Hospitals will have to gear up to have a separate wing with exclusive entry and exits or standalone buildings for treatment of Coronavirus patients, since it is not advisable to have non-covid patients under the same roof due to high infectivity.
The treating healthcare staff will also have to be exclusive to these patients while maintaining strict infection-control protocols. All hospital admissions for planned surgery and treatment will have to be done only after covid-19 testing to safeguard its healthcare staff, while those patients needing urgent care will need to be placed in isolation wings of the hospital until their test results come back. Unfortunately, all this is going to escalate the cost of healthcare in the country. Another social impact that this virus has brought about is the loss of domestic help in most households, leading to further health and safety issues for people suffering from ailments and senior citizens. With many Resident Welfare Associations preventing the entry of domestic help within the colonies, the elderly have been left to fend for themselves.
Many of these senior citizens live alone and have been dependent on the domestic help for their day-to-day living. People with ailments and pregnant women and young mothers, too, are suffering from the lack of domestic help as traditionally the burden of caring for the family falls on the women of the house.
Even with the lockdown, the number of cases was going up and it wasn’t the poor domestic help who brought the disease to our borders. But the fact of the matter is that the poor are facing the brunt of the impact of the disease on our society.
However good a plan the Government comes up with, there will always be a number of people who will oppose it with scientific reasoning and statistical data. This is an unprecedented crisis wherein everyone presumably is trying to do his/her best under the prevailing circumstances and there is never going to be a single “best solution.”
One also needs to understand that although covid-19 is a highly infectious disease, close to 90 per cent people only have minor symptoms like fever, sore throat, body ache and only about five to 10 per cent of the infected patients actually need hospitalisation. With a mortality rate of about 3.2 per cent in India as per the data on the Aarogya Setu app, it must be said that a road crash is 10 times more likely to kill than covid-19.
According to data compiled by SaveLife Foundation, the fatality rate per 100 road accidents was around 30 during 2019 and 381 patients had died in 1,200 road accidents in the last two months, translating to a fatality rate of almost 32 per cent.
As the Government may not be in a position to feed the poor for long, it is imperative to begin economic activity soon as suggested by industry experts. Although it is easy to keep the disease at bay through social distancing, maintaining simple social and personal hygiene and practising it religiously without dropping guard, it is indeed worrying to see people letting go of social distancing norms with the easing of the lockdown and putting everybody’s lives at risk.
We better learn to stick to all the guidelines issued by the Government to prevent the spread of the Coronavirus quickly, else we, as a nation, would have to pay a heavy price. The choice is ours. All we need to do is maintain distance from fellow beings to keep ourselves safe. How difficult can that be when your life is at stake.
(The writer is a consultant Neurosurgeon at Apollo Hospital)