On Doctors’ Day, instead of celebration, there was a renewed pledge to fight and a call to arms ahead of the third wave of Covid-19.
“We have to be ready for the third wave. We are working with NGOs in the districts on a platform that we have named Bengal Covid Care Initiative. We are planning to build 100 Covid care facilities comprising a minimum of 10 to 30 beds with oxygen support,” said Samaresh Das, chairman of New Town Forum & News, a residents’ group that had organised a programme at the Eco Park Food Court.
There was also a pat on the back in the form of a felicitation for the 35 doctors present, who are all linked to New Town.
“All of us, doctors, usually enjoy ourselves on this day but there can be no celebration this time, given the nightmare that we are passing through.” The words of Somnath Chatterjee, director of Suraksha Diagnostics, set the tone of the programme.
He lauded the doctors for continuing with their responsibilities as well as making time for the medical camps that the forum held.
Chatterjee pointed out that the medical fraternity knew little about Covid-19 during the first wave. “We fought better in the second wave. These 14 months were a trial by fire for the doctors, nurses and phlebotomists. The work pressure was tremendous. Whatever little spare time I had, I simply prayed,” he said.
Sanjay Kapoor, deputy director, Tata Medical Center, described Covid as a once-in-a-lifetime challenge. “The nine weeks of the second wave did more harm than nine months of the first wave. The virus will not go away. We have to learn to live with Covid. Last time, we let our guard down too soon. We have to work hard to ensure everyone is vaccinated. Vaccines are not reaching the rural areas or the slums fast enough,” he said, praising the “good work” that has been done in New Town where “every citizen came forward”.
Hidco and NKDA chairman Debashis Sen pointed out that if average life expectancy had increased from 45 years during Independence to 85 years now, the credit should go to the medical fraternity. “Right from birth, we are indebted to doctors even in non-Covid times.” He also praised New Town residents for volunteering at blood donation camps or for cooking meals for Covid patients. “We could provide free meals for Covid-affected senior citizens of New Town without spending any government money, so many had come forward with donations,” he said.
Lauding private facilities for working shoulder to shoulder with government medical units in the vaccination drive, he stressed on the need to achieve universal vaccination by December.
He admitted that some hesitancy had crept into people’s minds about private vaccine camps after the Debanjan Deb scam. “That’s why the pressure is more on us (NKDA vaccination sites) now,” he said, announcing the commencement of drive-in vaccination at Eco Park gate no. 1 to add to the two other existing centres.
Senior consultant paediatrician Soumitra Dutta said the pandemic had shifted the focus of doctors from a search for livelihood to a search for life. Indicating his willingness to serve at odd hours, he said: “Ami modhyoratreo bneche thaki.”
Most of the doctors present are already walking the talk, finding time beyond their working hours to serve society. Bratati Bera and Sreetama Sanyal had offered free teleconsultation. Ankita Haldar, a paediatrician, had attended medical camps. “If your child develops conjunctivitis, rash or fever, please consult a doctor,” she said, amid apprehensions of the third wave affecting children. Urologist Tridibes Mandal drives to backward regions, like Minakhan in Basirhat, to provide medical treatment. Public health specialist Pragnajyoti Mukherjee not only provided teleconsultation and attended camps for the underprivileged, but also carried food for his patients. Dental surgeon Priyadarshi Vaibhav teaches biology to underprivileged children who are tutored by NTFN’s education wing.
Paediatrician Achintya Sanyal urged for enforcing strict containment to check the spread of infectionto avert the third wave. Internal medicine specialist Rakhi S.D. Sharma expressed anguish that doctors and nurses were becoming fatigued physically and mentally. “It takes me four hours to see 15 patients on a round. Junior doctors, working as senior residents, are bearing an even heavier load, working 14 hours a day. “They are becoming careless. Many are not wearing full PPE (personal protective equipment) even in surroundings where high aerosol is being generated like near patients on high-flow nasal oxygen therapy or ventilator. I see them taking masks off and chatting outside the ICU. If we, doctors, do not maintain Covid protocol, how can we ask others to?”
If doctors had offered tuberoses, procured from New Town’s own flower bed at the Biswa Bangla Gate, in memory of their martyred colleagues at the start of the evening, the programme ended on a lighter note, with Sharma’s husband Goutam Dutta Sharma singing Dhitang dhitang bole.
