The wall clock at the doctors room just struck 10 .It’s the time .The earlier shift has just ended and the next shift is going to start.Donned in a sweat fostering war suit with masks and goggles on I just walked through the corridors to my destination.
It’s the covid icu.
Taking a stock of patients and their life statistics I bid goodbye to my previous soldier as the new reinforcement started to take charge.As I looked all around ,the world inside the icu seems to be just like that in a spaceshift or in a high decibel lab .Without the marker written names printed on our attire it’s practically impossible to identify each other .It’s just looked like a world of unknow .Doctors , nurses ,ward boys and cleaners all looked the same- only identity being that of a warrior.
Just as I started to check a patient’s biodata, suddenly I noticed a 22 years female on the bed to my right side starring at me .As i bowed down to her i instantly recognised her face.She was the same girl I saw yesterday in my night shift .She came with fever and a saturation less than normal.Yesterday she could breathe with oxygen but today I saw her connected to a life saving ventilator lying motionless but eyes blinking.Yesterday when I admitted she was in agony and had uncertainty over her eyebrows.She pleaded me last night to save her as her birthday was nearing and she have lots to prepare .I assured her last night.But today as I stare to her eyes I see the same uncertainty and agony but I have very less assurance to give as I myself felt lost .Her parameters made me think that she wont make it.Beyond my control I could feel moistness in my eyes .
As if it was not enough, I suddenly heard a screaming voice.I rushed to bed 212 .A young man in his 30s was screaming and crying .As I went and asked him, theres came the reply;
“Sir I have a 2 months old baby girl. I want to see her once before I die “.While he continued speaking I could see him panting and gasping for breath .As I consoled him that it wont be too long for him to remain seperated from her child,the monitors told me otherwise.The saturation was falling and there’s was little chance he could ever met his loved ones.
Walking down the the icu floor I noticed one young girl in her twenties waiting patiently outside the glass panes of the battlefield-the icu.Her eyes were frantically searching for someone.I trepidly walked to her.But what I heard from her left me clueless and speechless. Weeping her tears she told “my mother have been here for the last 21 days ,she have been put into ventilation .Can I see her sir ” .Just as I was going to answer her,she started begging for a glimpse.I asked her the name of her mother and pointed my finger to bed 213 .Seeing the ever loving face of her mother she was too ebulient and her radiant eyes was something which can go hardly unnoticed,but only to be drowned with tears of misery seeing her restless mother .She asked me if she can come inside and pat her head as her mother used to do when she was in pain in her childhood days.As I heard her articulation, my heart wept noiselessly but all I could do was to turn down her request because the disease is something highly contagious.
Just as I was taking to this lady the alarm started to ring. A new patient with sufferings and hope .In a few minutes,a gasping patient was brought in by some ambulance driver .An obese middle aged man.The man was lying restlessly on the stretchers searching for a gulp of breath .I called the ward boys but a stark silence prevailed.I started frantically searching everywhere for a ward boy .None I could afford to manage .The patient looks severe and the attendents anxious waiting for their near ones to lay seige of an icu bed .Options seems limited except for me to lift the patient with the help of his son .It’s not easy for unaccustomed people like us to lift patients and that too in wearing an astronaut vest.
Just as I completed my job in hand,I came to know that the wardboy on duty have himself contracted the disease and himself frantically searching for a hospital bed.In a pandemic which not only infects the care takers but also the caregivers,a disease which makes even the largest hospitals’ beds out of stock,the shortage of manpower was just an inevitable icing on the cake.
As all the unfolding events were put to rest,even if it was only for the time being I seiged a sense of relief a s stated to the hanging clock . It’s 3.30 am .My eyes were drowsy and becoming hazy by the midnight sleep and the fogg within and my skin becoming insensible owing to the sweat which glued the skin with my war coat .I started to walk to my chairs not knowing that it was too early to retire .The war was far from being over.My throats became dry but not even a single drop is allowed to soothe down my tongue.As I was going to retire I saw two nurses sleeping on the floor inadvertently .One of them was a senior nurse who was about to retire in a month.I could understand their pain and hardship working there for the last 6 hours and that too in such an attire in a hot and humid day.I felt living in thar deserts would have been much more easier .
Suddenly the girl in 66 shouted,she couldn’t breathe .As I hurried to her I noticed the oxygen cylinder has emptied .I started to call in reflex if any wardboy could bring an oxygen cylinder .But all in vain .My eyes fell on the door .I could see one cylinder standing in its legs.As there was no one to even help us carry the cylinder to the patient and we can’t afford to lose any of our patient ,I had to take help of one our nurses to bring up the cylinder with both sweating undeneath our war gown and gasping for breath.But to open the cylinder we need to open the safety lock.But sadly and fortunately or unfortunately in medical schools opening an oxygen cylinder lock is never taught which itself is a job which needs considerable energy which both of us were lacking at that period .But seeing a patient gasping for breath infront of us provides us with very little room.With whatever energy we could gather and commons sense we could apply we finally unlocked it.As we connected it to the person in need we noticed two other oxygen cylinders getting emptied.Before we could contact the logistics, both these patients started craving for breaths.We only had one but there’s almost 3-4 patients who need it .As a rapid drop of oxygen levels got evident from the monitors attached to these patients only one option was left with us.We started to rotate our lone oxygen cylinder among all of them.10-20 mins each .But as one of theirs oxygen saturation failed to improve our trick of rotating cylinder failed.We had no options than to give it to the one who need it the maximum although all of them needed it actually.In such a circumstance that’s the only solution I could gather , meanwhile waiting for the reinforcements to arrive.
Seeing such a horrendous situation my tears found an easy escape.It reminded me of all the futility of our jealousness and selfishness and our proudness for our succes an empty can.It made me so helpless that I felt even after so much advancement in medical science and their technology and our high yielding degrees we are still in situations where we could not even provide the basic oxygen.i felt like in a world where we became busy in nanotechnology and robotics and high voltage jets and guns probably we have just underestimated the value of oxygen.Just as I was contemplating these kind of thoughts,one fat old lady on my right hand bed pulled me.As I went near her with a stimmering voice I could hear her say “Plz be with me for some minutes”.As I went more near to her she told me that she misses her family ,her children and grandchildren as nobody visited her in the last few days.She told me that she wants to talk to people and wish to hold their hands and only that will make her well and not the medicines .All these she said while she gulped for breaths.As I listened to her patiently ,I could see her holding my little finger for so long that at one time I had no other choice but to forcefully pull my finger off .I could understand that what she feel in this god forsaken world of icu is a human touch which she have been denied off from the day she turned positive.At that moment I realized that this pandemic has not only made us helpless on the face of a non curable unknown disease but also deprived us of that human touch which we from childhood was taught can do wonders.Nobody of us can ever forget how patting our forehand by our mothers had made ourselves feel better whenever we fell sick.
While I was thinking about this ,I could see a red alarm in 212 .I rushed .whatever I had anticipated just happened much against my wishes that my anticipation should be proven wrong .The patient collapsed.After some minutes of unsuccessful try I pulled the shroud over the patients eyes.The end of one’s strory was put into motion .And from then there’s no looking back.One by one we lost patients even after our best possible effort.Before I could even complete the formalities of one I had to rush to another to give them some unsuccessful try.But all in vain.While I just finished writing my 5 th dead body slip and the place looked more of s crematorium than an icu ,I could hear one of our nurses moaning silently.when asked she told me in a husked voice that her husband and son both have been infected with this deadly virus and both are hospitalized and as she sees this loss of lives of both young and old she fears for her own family and even she had to carry on her own duties caring for patients she had little time to look after her own ones .I could sense her voice choking and it made me feel that these were not the words of only one healthcare worker but all other frontline warriors who have not only sacrificed their own comfort and safety but also have put their own families at stake.As I was thinking about all this I could see the morning sky coming out from the darkness.I hoped such a bright day awaits us in this mournful world of covid .The story of a covid icu is not just of deaths and survival but also of uncertainty and hope.While we lost patients breathing their last with an unfulfilled desire to see their child for the last time or the ones who even a day before was enjoying their life to its brim and today lying motionless connected with needles and tubes,we also were lucky enough to get patients on whom a day before we all had given off only to be wished a “good morning”in the next two days. This made me realize the uncertainties of our life and vulnerability of us where even our wealth and power can’t help.while I reclined to my desk to get ready for finishing my shift a video message propped in my mobile phone.In that video some people were seen accusing doctors and nurses to be killers and butchers and praying for doomsday for them and their families.Anger and sorrow filled my mind and soul.Yes my heart sank because I could still remember how two of my colleagues were weeping heavily after their duties when they lost two young patients even after giving their best efforts or when tears rolled down my cheek when I failed to save a 6 year old boy after trying all what was possible .I really don’t have an answer to whether should we be punished or not but what I really know are the tears which comes down of our eyes for a person whom we haven’t met even once in our lifetime before may be because we uphold the most precious bond of this world .The bond of humanity .
Amidst this gloomy night and arrays of death just as I leave the hospital premise ,I am just a drenched out man who only have one satisfaction in his heart..The ” goodmorning” of one of his patient who just came from the jaws of death!! And that’s all what I need to keep me going.