by Dr. Soutrik Dutta

The wall clock at the doctor’s room just struck 10. It’s time. The earlier shift has just ended and the next shift is going to start. Donned in a sweat fostering war suit with masks and goggles on, I just walked through the corridors to my destination.

It’s the covid ICU.

Taking a stock of patients and their life statistics, I bid goodbye to my previous soldier as the new reinforcement started to take charge. As I looked all around, the world inside the ICU seems to be just like that in a spaceship or in a high decibel lab. Without the marker-written names printed on our attire, it’s practically impossible to identify each other. It’s just looked like a world of unknowns. Doctors, nurses, ward boys, and cleaners all looked the same- the only identity being that of a warrior.

Just as I started to check a patient’s biodata, suddenly I noticed 22 years female on the bed to my right side starring at me. As I bowed down to her I instantly recognised her face. She was the same girl I saw yesterday on my night shift. She came with a fever and a saturation less than normal. Yesterday she could breathe with oxygen but today I saw her connected to a life-saving ventilator lying motionless but eyes blinking. Yesterday, when I admitted she was in agony and had uncertainty over her eyebrows. She pleaded with me last night to save her as her birthday was nearing and she has a lot to prepare. I assured her last night. But today as I stare into her eyes I see the same uncertainty and agony but I have very little assurance to give as I myself felt lost. Her parameters made me think that she won’t make it. Beyond my control, I could feel moistness in my eyes.

As if it was not enough, I suddenly heard a screaming voice. I rushed to bed 212. A young man in his 30s was screaming and crying. As I went and asked him, there came the reply;

“Sir I have a 2 months old baby girl. I want to see her once before I die”. While he continued speaking I could see him panting and gasping for breath. As I consoled him that it won’t be too long for him to remain separated from her child, the monitors told me otherwise. The saturation was falling and there’s was little chance he could ever meet his loved ones.

Walking down the ICU floor I noticed one young girl in her twenties waiting patiently outside the glass panes of the battlefield-the ICU. Her eyes were frantically searching for someone. I trepidly walked to her. But what I heard from her left me clueless and speechless. Weeping her tears she told “my mother has been here for the last 21 days, she has been put into ventilation. Can I see her sir “? Just as I was going to answer her, she started begging for a glimpse. I asked her the name of her mother and pointed my finger to bed 213. Seeing the ever-loving face of her mother she was too ebullient and her radiant eyes were something which can go hardly unnoticed, but only to be drowned with tears of misery seeing her restless mother. She asked me if she can come inside and pat her head as her mother used to do when she was in pain in her childhood days. As I heard her articulation, my heart wept noiselessly but all I could do was to turn down her request because the disease is something highly contagious.

Just as I was talking to this lady the alarm started to ring. A new patient with sufferings and hope. In a few minutes, a gasping patient was brought in by some ambulance driver. An obese middle-aged man. The man was lying restlessly on the stretchers searching for a gulp of breath. I called the ward boys but a stark silence prevailed. I started frantically searching everywhere for a ward boy. None I could afford to manage. The patient looks severe and the attendants anxious waiting for their near ones to lay siege of an ICU bed. Options seem limited except for me to lift the patient with the help of his son. It’s not easy for unaccustomed people like us to lift patients and that too in wearing an astronaut vest.

Just as I completed my job in hand, I came to know that the ward boy on duty has himself contracted the disease and himself frantically searching for a hospital bed. In a pandemic that not only infects the care takers but also the caregivers, a disease that makes even the largest hospitals’ beds out of stock, the shortage of manpower was just an inevitable icing on the cake.

As all the unfolding events were put to rest, even if it was only for the time being I sighed a sense of relief as stated to the hanging clock. It’s 3.30 am. My eyes were drowsy and becoming hazy by the midnight sleep and the Fogg within and my skin becoming insensible owing to the sweat which glued the skin with my war coat. I started to walk to my chairs not knowing that it was too early to retire. The war was far from being over. My throats became dry but not even a single drop is allowed to soothe down my tongue. As I was going to retire I saw two nurses sleeping on the floor inadvertently. One of them was a senior nurse who was about to retire in a month. I could understand their pain and hardship working there for the last 6 hours and that too in such attire on a hot and humid day. I felt living in the Thar desert would have been much easier.

Suddenly the girl in 66 shouted, she couldn’t breathe. As I hurried to her I noticed the oxygen cylinder has emptied. I started to call in reflex if any ward boy could bring an oxygen cylinder. But all in vain. My eyes fell on the door. I could see one cylinder standing in its legs. As there was no one to even help us carry the cylinder to the patient and we can’t afford to lose any of our patients, I had to take the help of one of our nurses to bring up the cylinder with both of us sweating underneath our war gown and gasping for breath. But to open the cylinder we need to open the safety lock. But sadly and fortunately or unfortunately in medical schools opening an oxygen cylinder lock is never taught which itself is a job that needs considerable energy which both of us were lacking at that period. But seeing a patient gasping for breath in front of us provides us with very little room. With whatever energy we could gather and commons sense we could apply we finally unlocked it. As we connected it to the person in need we noticed two other oxygen cylinders getting emptied. Before we could contact the logistics, both these patients started gasping for breaths. We only had one but there were 3-4 patients who need it. As a rapid drop of oxygen levels got evident from the monitors attached to these patients only one option was left with us. We started to rotate our lone oxygen cylinder among all of them.10-20 mins each. But as one of the patient’s oxygen saturation failed to improve, our trick of rotating cylinder failed. We had no option but to give it to the one who needed it the most, although all of them needed it . In such a circumstance that’s the only solution, I could gather, while waiting for the reinforcements to arrive.

Seeing such a horrendous situation my tears found an easy escape. It reminded me of all the futility of our jealousness and selfishness and our pride for our success like an empty can. It made me so helpless that I felt that even after so much advancement in medical science, its technology, and our high-yielding degrees we still find ourselves in situations where we could not even provide the basic necessity like oxygen. I felt like in a world where we became busy in nanotechnology and robotics and high voltage jets and guns probably we have just underestimated the value of oxygen. Just as I was contemplating this kind of thought, one fat old lady on my right-hand bed pulled me. As I went near her with a stammering voice I could hear her say “Plz be with me for some minutes”. As I went nearer to her she told me that she misses her family, her children, and grandchildren as nobody visited her in the last few days. She told me that she wants to talk to people and wishes to hold their hands and only that will make her well and not the medicines. All these she said while she gulped for breaths. As I listened to her patiently, I could see her holding my little finger for so long that at one time I had no other choice but to forcefully pull my finger off. I could understand how she felt in this god-forsaken world of ICU is a human touch which she has been denied off from the day she turned positive. At that moment I realized that this pandemic has not only made us helpless in the face of a non-curable unknown disease but also deprived us of that human touch which we from childhood was taught can do wonders. None of us can ever forget how patting our forehand by our mothers had made us feel better whenever we fell sick.

While I was thinking about this, I could see a red alarm in 212. I rushed. Whatever I had anticipated just happened much against my wishes that my anticipation should be proven wrong. The patient collapsed. After some minutes of unsuccessful try, I pulled the shroud over the patient’s eyes. The end of one’s story was put into motion. And from then there’s no looking back. One by one we lost patients even after our best possible efforts. Before I could even complete the formalities of one I had to rush to another to give them some unsuccessful try. But all in vain. While I just finished writing my 5th dead body slip and the place looked more of a crematorium than an ICU, I could hear one of our nurses moaning silently. When asked she told me in a hushed voice that her husband and son both have been infected with this deadly virus and both are hospitalized and as she sees this loss of lives of both young and old she fears for her own family and even she had to carry on her own duties, caring for patients, she had little time to look after her own loved ones. I could sense her voice choking and it made me feel that these were not the words of only one healthcare worker but all other frontline warriors who have not only sacrificed their own comfort and safety but also have put their own families at stake. As I was thinking about all this I could see the morning sky coming out from the darkness. I hoped such a bright day awaits us in this mournful world of covid. The story of a covid ICU is not just of deaths and survival but also of uncertainty and hope. While we lost patients breathing their last with an unfulfilled desire to see their child for the last time or the ones who were enjoying their life to its brim till a day before, were today lying motionless connected with needles and tubes, we were also lucky enough to get patients on whom we have given up only to be wished a “good morning” in the next day. This made me realize the uncertainties of our life and vulnerabilities where our wealth and power can’t help. while I reclined to my desk to get ready for finishing my shift a video message propped in my mobile phone. In that video, some people were seen accusing doctors and nurses to be killers and butchers and praying for doomsday for them and their families. Anger and sorrow filled my mind and soul. Yes, my heart sank because I could still remember how two of my colleagues were weeping heavily after their duties when they lost two young patients even after giving their best efforts or when tears rolled down my cheek when I failed to save a 6-year-old boy after trying all that was possible. I really don’t have an answer to whether should we be punished or not but what I really know are the tears that come down from our eyes for a person whom we haven’t met even once in our lifetime before maybe because we uphold the most precious bond of this world. The bond of humanity.

Amidst this gloomy night and arrays of death just as I leave the hospital premises, I am just a drenched-out man who only has one satisfaction in his heart. The “good morning” of one of his patients who just came from the jaws of death!! And that’s all that I need to keep me going.

About the Author:

Dr. Soutrik Kumar Dutta a resident of Ranaghat, Nadia, West Bengal, is currently working as a Resident doctor, Assam Medical College, Dibrugarh, Assam.