Parents waiting, but no leave for 4 months
Dr Yaksh Dhillon (27), medical officer in-charge of Basai government health centre, says his mobile phone never stops ringing, even at night. “Every day, we get more than 200 samples at our centre that we need to store carefully and maintain a data sheet of before sending to Civil hospitals for processing. We have 15 members at our health centres and they visit each and every house for contact tracing and monitoring of patients in home isolation. I receive lots of calls from patients and their attendants. There are days when we hardly get any sleep as many times we have to shift the Covid patient to the hospital from their home at night as well,” he says, talking about the daily struggles that he and his team face in the battle against Covid. He hasn’t taken any leave in the past four months, he adds. While he is busy with Covid duty, he is, at the same time, worried about his parents, who are in their 50s. “My father is 54 and my mother is 50. She is a government teacher and he is a retired Army personnel. It was very difficult for us to manage during the lockdown. Every time my mom calls me, she asks when I will come home. But due to my schedule, I am unable to go home and stay in quarantine. Now, even during the unlock period, when everyone is moving around freely, I still have a lot of work and can’t go home,” he says, adding that he hopes the situation will improve soon.
He ensures samples reach labs safely
Dr Ram Prakash Rai (43), an epidemiologist who hails from Bihar, has been a field officer who was initially collecting samples. He said that the first sample, which was collected for Covid testing in Gurgaon, was on January 24. Since then, he has been playing a crucial role in the fight against Covid. “I have been working in Gurgaon as an epidemiologist for the past six years now. I have visited areas with the rapid action team to form clusters with a view to curb the spread of the virus. I was part of the survey team to analyse people who were getting infected and to understand the nature of the virus. It’s been a team effort so far. We have come a long way from the initial stage, but every day is a new lesson,” he says. He adds that health workers have worked without any break for the past nine months now. “Every day, my work starts around 8am and continues till 11pm. I have been involved in training field staff on safety procedures and have also explained to them how to collect samples carefully. I am also responsible for ensuring that samples reach the lab safely and solve the issues of health workers on the ground,” he explains.
The men who keep ambulances moving
Praveen Kumar (42), a medical technician with the ambulance emergency team, has been on Covid duty since March 19. And since then, he has never visited his home in Dadri. “The journey so far has been very tough. I always have to accompany the team of ambulance doctors and drivers. We wear PPE kits throughout the day while on duty. I have seen people die and that takes a toll on my health. And sometimes I crave to see my family. Many of my colleagues also got infected,” Kumar said. Ravinder Kumar (38), an ambulance driver, also narrated a similar experience. He says his job has changed a lot. Now he has to wear PPE kit and sanitise himself several times in a day. Because of the nature of his job, his friends have also become less. “During the initial days, I hardly used to get any sleep. We always kept hoping that the situation will improve, but now we can only wait for the vaccine to take everything back to normal. There have been days when I had to ferry more than 10 Covid patients. At times, I even drove the entire day. Even though things are better now, but several drivers have fallen sick and as a result the burden of work has increased. It’s been over nine months that some of us haven’t taken any leaves and are working two shifts,” he said.
On the ground, they help track contacts
Priyanka (28), an auxiliary nursing midwife, has been waking up every day at 5am since March 18 when she joined the Covid team of Tigra. Her first job was to identify 1,020 people whose samples were collected by the health department. “Since the day I joined duty, I was asked to conduct contact tracing of Covid patients and also to check if patients under home isolation required oxygen or needed to be admitted to hospitals. I, along with other health workers, have been visiting several areas of the district to distribute pamphlets to spread awareness on the virus. We also conducted a door-to-door review of Covid patients under home isolation to ensure that they do not turn critical. We are in touch with the medical officers of each area and we report to them about patients’ condition on a daily basis. I have also been helping in setting up camps for Covid tests. Sometimes, it is depressing as we have to counsel sick patients throughout the day, but I had to overcome my inhibitions as desperate times need desperate measures.”
She teaches people how to stay safe
Poonam (43), an Asha worker posted at Tigra village, said she felt exhausted when after trying everything, she couldn’t trace a contact of a Covid patient. She had started conducting surveys on March 26 when the country was under lockdown and had to travel every day from morning till late in the evening to cover big localities as well as slums. “We had to convince people to not venture out and wash their hands properly. Initially, people were reluctant to share information and it was tough to make them understand how we were trying to contain the virus,” she said, adding that the contact tracing job was the toughest as people would hide their contacts or forget to reveal all possible people they came in touch with after getting infected. “On several occasions, we reached a dead-end when either the phones were switched off or the addresses were wrongly mentioned. So far we have been able to deal with all the problems successful and hope to continue with the fight,” Poonam said.
Home 10km away, but he can’t risk a visit
Sandeep Kumar Yadav (35), a lab technician with Civil Hospital, has been collecting samples since March. He also supervises the work of other lab technicians. His village is just 10 km from the city, but he hasn’t visited in months. “My day starts very early and every day I visit several areas to collect samples. The risk of getting infected is very high. So due to the nature of my work, I chose to stay at a government isolation centre,” he said.
Samples to reports, she records all data
Dr Neha Bhardwaj (30), a programme health manager, is responsible for analysing data of patients from health centres and forwarding it to various government labs in Haryana. Once the results are in, she segregates those and shares it with the respective public health centres and the civic agencies. She also takes care of sampling at the private labs.
Since the outbreak, the doctor has been working day in and day out. She doesn’t even get time to spend with her aged parents. “I keep getting calls from all parts of the district asking me about samples and reports. The work is very crucial and there is no scope for any mistake. I can’t afford to finish my job in a hurry even when I desperately want to be with my family,” she says.
Father in ICU, but this doctor didn’t skip work
Dr Monika Yadav (26), who works at the RT-PCR lab at Civil Hospital, joined work when the pandemic was at its peak. “At home, I have elderly parents and two children below the age of 10. So, working in an area full of Covid-positive samples and then going back to them made me feel guilty. But my family supported me and kept saying that as a doctor, I was only doing my duty. However, soon my father got infected and had to be admitted to the ICU. This was the most stressful time and I didn’t feel like working. Thankfully, he got better and realised how important my job is. Now I feel blessed that through my job I can help others who are going through the same situation,” she said.