Covid-19 has unmasked the real danger to medical professionals, doctor and nurses while doing their duties. But it has also laid bare the hypocrisy, the denial of dignity by society to doctor and nurses, even to those who lost their lives in service of patients.  Medical professionals had signed for the occupational hazard willingly, but not to be an object of violence, undignified, and ignoble behaviour.

At this time, if anyone is there and surrounded by patients, with or without appropriate PPE,  it is the only doctors, nurses, and front health care workers. Even in non-COVID hospitals or outdoors, it is impossible to differentiate which one patient is carrying the deadly virus.

There were countless reports of health care workers being assaulted, all over before Covid-19, as well.  It was being taken as a routine. Covid-19 has not only helped to unmask the real danger to doctors and nurses but also sounded them of being an object of the undeserving ignoble attitude and hypocrisy of the society.

Mumbai: 36-year-old doctor dies of multiple organ failure, samples test positive for Covid-19

A 36-year-old general physician, who consulted at two private hospitals in Mumbai’s Govandi, succumbed to the novel coronavirus infection on Thursday. He is likely to have contracted the virus from a patient at the hospital.

“My brother had to be shifted on oxygen to Raheja as no cardiac ambulance was ready to transport a Covid-19 patient,” said the doctor’s brother.

The doctor did not have any co-morbid conditions and died of Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome due to Covid-19 along with multiple organ failure. He was declared dead at around 1:55 am on Thursday at SL Raheja Hospital. The doctor started showing symptoms such as loose motions and breathlessness on April 13.

He was admitted to the Sion Hospital in the wee hours of April 15 where he was tested for Covid-19. As his condition was deteriorating and an ICU bed was not available at Sion, he was shifted to Somaiya Hospital in Vidyavihar. At Somaiya hospital, his breathing improved but he needed dialysis.

As he was a suspected Covid-19 patient, Somaiya hospital administration said that he will have to be shifted to Raheja hospital as they have dialysis for Covid-19 patients.

“My brother had to be shifted on oxygen to Raheja and no cardiac ambulance was ready to transport a Covid-19 patient. He was on a ventilator. After looking at his deteriorating condition, we shifted him using a normal ambulance. His samples have returned positive for Covid-19,” said the deceased’s brother who is also a doctor.

The doctor’s condition kept deteriorating. He had a multi-organ failure with deranged liver function test, acute renal failure, and bleeding disorder. His condition further worsened on Wednesday night. Despite multiple efforts of resuscitation, he could not survive and was declared dead.

“We did not get a chance to speak with him to understand how he contracted the virus. Before going to Sion, we tried to get a bed at Kasturba hospital, but we were told no beds are available,” the doctor’s brother added.

“This is something we need to be very careful about. If healthcare workers are infected like this, we should be able to provide them with the best of care,” said Epidemiologist Dr Om Shrivastava.

21 occupational risk to doctor and nurses

Covid-19 unmasks the risk to health workers

Noble doctor-ignoble death