Keep your distance and help to save lives

Tools are limited in struggle against pandemic, writes Dr. Debkant Jena.

I felt the need to write this piece after I came home from the hospital last Sunday exhausted, having worked non-stop over the last couple of weeks preparing for an unprecedented crisis that looked like a remote threat just a few weeks back.

The clinical work as a surgeon has been too easy during this crisis response, almost a respite from the frantic scramble of planning and preparing for this challenge.

None of us wish to follow the path of this pandemic as was seen in Italy and other European countries, yet the epidemiological curve and the surge in the number of positive results from community transmission of COVID -19 seem to follow an eerily similar pattern in many cities and provinces across Canada. Many of us are far away from our loved ones and elderly relatives, and cannot be with them even if they need us. These are the sombre realities of a pandemic that many smart minds like Bill Gates once predicted, but the world never took that threat seriously until it hit us in the face.

My colleagues working on the front line go to their clinics and hospitals in our communities every day, not because they want to be seen as heroes in this battle, but they have taken up this caring profession knowing full well they would be flung in the path of such risky undertakings if and when the time demands.

One can see the concern in their eyes for their own safety, yet they are not afraid to tackle the oncoming tsunami that seems to be surely coming our way.

We sincerely request that people in the community understand the mode of the spread of this virus, listen to their leaders, doctors, public health officials and stay inside and maintain social distance. It is important to frequently wash our hands with soap, sanitize the high-contact areas, avoid touching our faces and to stay away physically from the elderly and vulnerable in case we pass on the virus to them.

The personal, social and economic strain from these preventive steps can take a toll on us, yet if we do it right this time, we may only have to do it once and come out of this crisis relatively unscathed.

These social and personal measures can be tough on us on so many levels. But without a vaccine, these are the only tools we now have to help contain the spread and stop overwhelming our health-care system.

With our collective resolve over the next few weeks or months, we, hopefully, will be able to look at each other with thankful eyes and with quiet satisfaction that we defeated this pandemic without losing too many of our loved ones in the process.

Dr. Debkant Jena is an orthopedic surgeon and chief of surgery at Medicine

Hat Regional Hospital.