Camaraderie healed these Ahmedabad doctors of corona scars

AHMEDABAD: Bollywood has friend jodis ranging from Jai-Veeru to Raju-Farhan-Rancho that define friendships as all-sacrificing ties or rock-solid support systems during thick and thin. At Civil Hospital, many such duos and trios were formed over the past one-and-ahalf years as hundreds of junior doctors and resident doctors were pressed into the long Covid mission.
While many got infected with Covid-19, Dr Neel Patel and Dr Pankaj Nanoda contracted the disease together!
“I knew Pankaj before the pandemic as a surgery resident. I was pursuing my MD in pharmacology and was working on the side effects of a drug,” said Dr Patel. “As we became members of Junior Doctors Association (JDA) core committee, the bond was forged. We worked shoulder-to-shoulder for our treatment-onwheels initiative with which we gave treatment to severely ill patients in the queue outside the hospital.”
But on May 14, the two friends tested positive one after another. “I considered myself a veteran, with infection in the first wave too!” Dr Patel said. “I was more worried about Pankaj as steroid treatment had started for us both. My tiffin would come from his home. We talked to each other over the phone or through friends to ensure that the other is doing fine.”
Likewise, Dr Narendra Kumar and Dr Nikhil Chavda, resident doctors in community medicine, cemented a bond during the Covid period. “I’m from Chennai, and Nikhil made me feel at home over the past couple of years. We first got the Covid ward duties together, and then we were together for mucormycosis duty,” said Dr Kumar.

The friends recently got dengue together, with Dr Kumar joking that they both might have been bitten by the same mosquito. “Having a good friend was very important during the pandemic, as it was physically and mentally exhausting,” he said. “At the end of the day you need a person to whom you can open your heart — share your fears and anxieties.”
Dr Yogesh Mori, president of JDA, said that when the doctors were living virtually without their families for over a year, this ecosystem helped them cope with the challenges of the pandemic.