Storytellers

The Pandemic of Corona Virus - COVID-19 By Dr. Sanjai Subha Everyone in this world is now aware of the word – corona virus and the pandemic caused by it. It has created a tremendous amount of fear, as well as uncertainty among all classes of people, irrespective of the difference that exists among them. How did a virus of such small size evolve as a global problem? Why is everyone   afraid of it? Even the most economically developed countries like the USA, Spain, Italy, and China are finding it difficult to control it? What will happen to India? These questions haunt us daily. In addition, various forms of media like social media, newspapers, and television are fueling the fear and anxiety further. Thanks to social media applications like Facebook, Whats app, Twitter, YouTube, the news arsenal of this era, everyone is on their phone, surfing through various posts, messages throughout the day, panicking simultaneously. The emotion of fear has always been the greatest survival adva

Social distancing…..you must be kidding me Vijay Gopichandran, Sudharshini Subramaniam, Vinod H Krishnamoorthy Today the rural clinic was very busy. Between the three of us who were in the clinic, we saw more than 100 patients, some of them with very complex problems. One of the patients we saw today was a 50-year-old lady, Kamala (name changed for confidentiality purposes) with fever, cough, and breathlessness for a week. Even as you are reading this, we know the word that is ringing in your mind – Covid-19. The lady belongs to a very poor family, as do most of our patients. She has no history of travel anywhere beyond the nearest town, nor did she have a history of contact with anyone with travel or diagnosed Covid-19. So, we started treatment, as we would for a typical community-acquired lung infection. To anyways be on the safer side, in case community transmission of the virus had started without us noticing it, we advised her and her daughter on home isolation. The d

Generation Equality Vijay Gopichandran The young girl with the doe eyes stood outside my clinic door peeping inside anxiously looking at me as if asking “may I come in?” I invited her inside with a nod of my head and she walked in with wary steps. Right behind her walked in an elder lady carrying a little baby, not more than 6 months old. The baby was bawling. The young girl looked back at the baby with tired eyes, imploring it to stop crying. The elder lady started rocking the baby to quieten it and said to the young girl, “you tell the doctor about your problems, I will stand with him outside. I will see if he quietens” and she walked out with the baby still crying loudly. I looked at the young girl and asked her how she was. “Doctor, I have a fever with chills for the past 3 days. But I am pregnant now, and so doctors are not giving me medicines for fever. They asked me to take ginger water. I have been taking it, but still, I am feeling very weak and tired”, said the girl.