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From a doctor’s pen: Family, the strength behind a doctor's struggle during the pandemic
National Doctor’s Day is celebrated on July 1 every year. It is a day to thank and honour the medical staff and their selfless commitment to their work.
The coronavirus pandemic threw everything out of gear for each one across the globe. The lockdowns all over and instructions to 'stay home, stay safe' were followed by all for their safety and for that of their family. But, it was the doctors and other frontline workers who stepped out to protect others! And that too with the risk of infecting themselves and their loved ones at home. But, their families understood their call for their duty and stood by them all along!
On National Doctor’s Day, Dr Ipsita Ghosh (MBBS, MD, DM) who is a Consultant endocrinologist at Eedf Hospital and Narayan Memorial Hospital Kolkata, shared her views on how doctors managed to cope with the pandemic with the support of their families.
How did your families support you during the pandemic?
“In the fight against corona, our families played a significant role in motivating and helping stay positive during these difficult times.
• Despite the worrisome situation, the family members of doctors continued to act as a support system and made efforts to mitigate the risk as much as possible with stringent measures while keeping us motivated. They played a very important role, and without their support, doctors would have failed to prioritize this service.
• The recurrent attacks on colleagues during the pandemic from different parts of the country has hurt us but not deterred us mainly due to the respect and encouragement from our family members towards this noble profession.
• Also, doctors have been requesting that their family members get vaccinated on priority, which did not happen until the vaccine situation improved. But this did not demotivate our family members from encouraging us to serve humanity during these difficult times.
With due respect to other professions, doctors are taught to keep society first from early days of their medical education by stalwarts of their profession and that becomes their first priority for life."
Why is it necessary to vaccinate the family members of doctors?
“Unfortunately, despite constant pleas from the medical and health worker fraternity as well as other frontline workers to facilitate vaccination drives for family members, no prioritization was done for family members of front-line workers. Despite being doctors we could not help our family members with whom we were living and the constant worry of us exposing them to the virus was destabilizing at times.
The onset of the second wave has left many doctors worried about the well-being of their children also as some of the emerging studies have suggested that kids were also showing symptoms, unlike the first wave. So, now, the worry is for the younger ones below 18 for whom there is no approved vaccine currently although some trials have started and in our country too”.
What message would you like to give to your colleagues and their families:
“Fighting the SARS-COV-2 virus would not have been possible without the support of our families. We know the fight against the virus is not over yet, but we can fight and defeat the coronavirus with teamwork and help from our families. We need to stay optimistic that the coronavirus pandemic will end soon. We need to keep our hopes high as this is a passing phase and the end will be soon so stay happy and fit and continue to be motivated”.
