Small deeds to maintain normalcy during pandemic times

Small deeds to maintain normalcy during pandemic times

Vijay Gopichandran

About two weeks ago, two of my colleagues and I sat in a large room, separating ourselves at the recommended 2 meter distance from each other and my senior colleague remarked “It is as though the ‘reset button’ for the world has been pressed. We all will soon have to adapt to a new normal in our lives”. 

It was the beginning of the lock-down of the whole country to contain the spread of Covid-19. Since there are no public transport vehicles on the roads and I do not drive or own any private vehicles, I have started walking from and to the hospital. The distance is not much, just about 3 KM, but I am seeing things which I have never seen before. There are a bunch of people living on the pavements near the metro station on the way to my hospital. They were part of the background tapestry of the urban busy life that I had never noticed them before. One family has a young man, a woman and two scrawny kids. As I walked along the pavement, I watched the kids squeal with pleasure, playing with a tiny puppy whom they had domesticated and tied a small thread to the neck as its leash. I was wondering what they were doing for food. Even as I stood there helpless, thinking what to give them as money cannot buy anything for them during this lock-down, a tall, tough traffic policeman walked by and handed a parcel of what looked like hot packed food to the family. The woman took it from him with a look of absolute gratitude. I smiled to myself and walked on.

I am a doctor, but I am not in the front line of the so-called ‘war against corona’. I do not treat patients with Covid-19. I am trained in community medicine, which is a specialty that deals with prevention of infectious diseases, epidemics etc. I was on the field for a few days participating in various disease containment activities. But that assignment did not continue for long, as the efficient government machinery pitched in and took over. I am reviewing standard protocols from different sources about setting up Covid-19 treatment facilities and assisting my institution in becoming one. Being a doctor, a public health trained doctor, and not being able to do much about the spread of the pandemic created a huge restlessness and discomfort in me. I am sure this must be the case with many others like me. A sense of worthlessness and futility caught up and I went through a horrible phase. I couldn’t sleep, and if I did doze off, I would wake up with a pounding heart and sweating profusely. More than anything, the helplessness of being trained to do something, but not being able to utilize it was the most disabling aspect of those days.

Three things helped me get used to this phase of helplessness and adapt to it in a constructive manner. I am a teacher in a medical college and I teach community medicine. Firstly, we resumed our online teaching sessions for our students. I prepared hypothetical clinical cases (child with diarrhea, child with fever, person with pulmonary tuberculosis) with fictitious names, families, social characteristics and clinical findings and started conducting clinical classes on an online classroom module. Initially, I was not very convinced about how useful these session would be. But I was so encouraged to see that all students logged in and actively participated in these classes. I realized that the students were also helpless, bored, frustrated. I realized that these classes brought them a trifle closer to normalcy. As I was adjusting and adapting to the situation slowly, I realized they were helping me in the process and benefiting from it at the same time.  

Secondly, I read on a social media platform about the important interventions that my alma mater was adopting in the rural areas where they are working to ease the pains of the lock-down among the poor. I contacted the executive director of the non-governmental organization with whom I work to attempt to replicate the model in our field area. I also mobilized a little cash for this lock-down support work for the poor. Due to the lock-down I haven’t been able to honor my weekly commitment of primary care at the NGO every Sunday. It was one of the major reasons for my helplessness and restlessness.  Engaging with the NGO in this manner helped me feel helpful to them in a small way. I am also planning to hold a telemedicine consultation to reconnect with the patients from this week.

Thirdly, I volunteer my daily morning time to stand at the gate of our hospital and meet, triage and talk to the patients coming there, of course maintaining a safe social distance. As part of the initiative to keep hospitals Covid-19 ready, and in order to reduce crowding in hospitals, all hospitals have closed their non-emergency outpatient clinics. Several persons with aches and pains and discomforts have nowhere to go. They come to our hospital gates. I stand there and talk to them. Though I am not able to perform a physical examination for all of them due to privacy constrains, I listen to them and prescribe medications right there. They walk into the pharmacy, get their medicines and walk out, with a smile of gratitude.

In my own little way, I realized that I am contributing to maintaining a tiny sliver of normalcy in these dark times. In such uncertain times, having a healthy routine helps. Finding meaning in these routines helps further. I finish this blog with a word of sincere prayer that we all develop the patience and good health to get over this pandemic in its due course. Life is going to be different after this is over. Let us make sure we get through this with positive lessons and messages to take to the other side.