‘THERE’S A SENSE OF UNCERTAINTY – WE’RE DEALING WITH SOMETHING WE DON’T KNOW ABOUT’
Janitha Gowribalan, 35, is an anaesthetist and intensive care doctor at Whittington Hospital, north London
The bus on the way into my night shift is empty. The knock-on effect of what I’ve been seeing in the hospital wards is playing out on the streets – a couple of people in face masks but, mostly, no one is out any more. I get in at 7.45pm and see the number of Covid-19 cases has dramatically increased in the last two days. We will feel the strain very soon.
First, I must attend to a man in his fifties with underlying health conditions, who badly needs our help. He’s struggling to breathe, so we have to quickly make lifesaving, unavoidable decisions to induce a coma and place him on a ventilator. He’s frightened and asking for us to ring his wife and children. He’s struggling to speak through his tight-fitted mask but, if he takes it off, his oxygen levels will plummet. It’s upsetting telling him it’s not possible for us
to call his family now. I think about how terrified I would feel if I couldn’t speak to my parents in his position. We have to act fast as his oxygen levels dramatically fall when we induce the coma – this is normal and we expect it, but it still feels frightening. If it falls too low, a person can go into respiratory or cardiac arrest.
Everyone has noticed how much busier it’s become: on my ICU ward there are a significant number of Covid-19 patients and many more in the rest of the hospital. There’s a sense of uncertainty: we’re trained for this, but as it is a new virus, we’re dealing with something we don’t yet really know about.
I worry about what will happen if this continues and how we’ll cope. We have put more staff on the wards, but I worry, too, about how long it takes to put on our protective clothing to treat these patients. All the equipment we need is available, but it can take a team 20 minutes to just get on the gowns, hats, gloves, goggles and masks.
I wouldn’t call myself a hero, but I take a lot of pride in what I do and know how important it is. What is even more vital is that the public observes social distancing – where you stay at home unless absolutely necessary. We know it can dramatically reduce the spread of infection and we’re worried we can’t handle much more. I live with another doctor and we’ve made a contingency plan that if one of us shows symptoms, we will isolate at home while the other one moves out to a hotel provided by the NHS.
I finish my shift at 8am and head home, exhausted, thinking about the man I’ve left in a coma and his family. I hope he will be OK, but the truth is, none of us knows. On my way out I walk past an old building still standing in the grounds here. It reminds me that Whittington Hospital used to look after smallpox patients during the epidemic in the 1800s. It feels like a powerful reminder that we’ve survived this before, and we will get through it again.
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