Guyana-born doctor sees purpose in yeoman service on COVID-19 frontline
When COVID-19 hit the United States, New York City was considered the epicentre of the disease. Thousands of people succumbed to the virus and as health officials waged a sometimes seemingly futile battle, Dr Keith Cummings, sometimes suited up in “basically plastic bags,” was at the forefront caring for hospitalised patients and even those who were in their homes.
He lost some of the patients and he cried as there were times when he felt hopeless but Dr Cummings, a son of Guyana’s soil, did not give up as he knew his expertise was needed. Over the last few years, he has not only treated people in the US but he has done so in Guyana and other parts of the world, some by consultation from afar, and as time progressed he has seen more and more victories.
“I feel as if this is my purpose. I have a purpose-driven mind to impact people in health and wellness. That is my purpose in life,” Dr Cummings said when asked what drove him when many others were afraid.
He described the initial fight with the virus as “building a ship and sailing at the same time” as numerous forms of therapies were tried and when some started to fail he said it really impacted him.
“Once I began to lose people that I became attached to, it became personal. [It felt] like I was losing…,” he said. He recalled that he resuscitated a 76-year-old woman one morning and she was very thankful but he got a big shock “the next morning when I came back the lady was wrapped and sent to the morgue.
“The next day she died so I actually kind of broke down with that, I actually cried…”
Dr Cummings recalled crying for a staff member at the hospital who hailed from Grenada and worked in the canteen. The 48-year-old said it became even more difficult as they were scared to touch patients for long periods; they were still learning and treatments were failing.
Dr Cummings, who is an Associate Professor of Family Medicine at St George’s University School of Medicine and an attending physician at the Brooklyn Hospital Center, has to date personally treated over 3,000 patients with zero deaths from a protocol he personally developed.
During 2020, when the pandemic raged in New York, Dr Cummings, who was away from his young family, sacrificed immensely to save lives, seeing hundreds of hospitalised patients. But when the hospitals became overcrowded, he suited up and bravely visited homes to treat stricken persons.
“The entire pandemic from day one to now I have seen thousands of patients across the world. I have travelled to several places… and most importantly I not only see patients in hospitals [but] I also do teleconferences, telemedicine…,” Dr Cummings said in a recent interview with this newspaper.
At the outset of the pandemic, Dr Cummings witnessed about 12 to 15 patients dying in one day.
“Never in my history have I seen patients die just one after the other but that is what we were seeing because New York was the epicentre,” he said, before adding that at that time he felt emboldened to work more and do more. There were times
when he worked 14 days straight.
He said he does not employ only traditional medicine but combines evidencebased medicine with homoeopathic medicine. He has a background in pharmacy as a former graduate of the University of Guyana (UG) pharmacy programme. He noted that he employs a series of herbs that originate from plants found locally (such as lemongrass and dandelion) that he believes can prevent people from becoming hospitalised.
Holistic and spiritual
Dr Cummings now lives between New
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