Dr Vedaprakash – JIPMER Hospital, Puducherry
This is the story of Dr. Vedaprakash, a Vidyadhan Scholar, who after completing his MBBS from Bangalore Medical College, is currently pursuing MS in General Surgery from the prestigious JIPMER, Puducherry. With the second wave of COVID-19 causing havoc across the nation and posing a huge challenge to the healthcare system of India, Dr. Vedaprakash is valiantly doing his part in facing up to the challenges posed by the raging Pandemic.
At the hospital where he is working, more than 50% of the patients arriving at the Emergency Wing have been testing positive indicative of the rising spread of the virus. All ICUs and general wards have progressively been getting converted into COVID wards and the problem of no beds in the ICUs due to full occupancy has become a major concern.
Most of the healthcare workers, including resident doctors, nurses, and other workers are performing COVID duties. Dr. Vedaprakash is part of the medical team working in the COVID ward and ICU. They work ceaselessly divided in 8-hour shifts. The constant wearing of the full PPE suits while on active duty causes excessive perspiration and a blurring of vision due to fogging of protective goggles making it that much harder to examine the patients. By the time the duty ends every day, it is common to have a headache due to the tight mask and goggles around the head and carry a feeling of suffocation. Irrespective of the precautions taken, many healthcare workers keep testing positive, which also leads to an increase in the workload on the other members of the team. The doctors have observed that people with Diabetes, Kidney disease, Heart diseases usually experience more severe symptoms with rapid worsening, and once the patient is put on a Ventilator the chances of survival turn grim.
Dr Vedaprakash’s simple message to all is not to take the disease lightly. “We shouldn’t be negligent of the elderly people around us, who are more vulnerable, and diligently follow all preventive measures like wearing masks, frequent hand hygiene, staying at home and staying away from symptomatic people”, and requests everyone to get vaccinated, which has proven to reduce the severity of the disease, at the earliest available opportunity.
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