Why I am not a warrior
By: Areet Kaur
Tags: Doctors, India, Coronavirus, Warriors

I am a physician working in a government hospital. It is like any other government hospital in India with limited facilities, a dilapidated infrastructure and a constant shortage of staff. Despite these limitations we carry on and remain the only source of hope for the masses of poor people, who cannot afford to go to the many swanky private hospitals in the state, offering world class health facilities. On an average day we see about fifteen hundred patients. My colleagues and I treat a multitude of patients every single day: accidental injuries, child birth and deliveries, ulcers and tumors, heart disease and dog/snake bites…the list goes on. It is a busy setting milling with hundreds of patients some satisfied, others angry at the inevitable waits and delays.

In March this year, the hospital environment changed drastically when we started getting new Covid-19 cases. It required implementation of a whole new set of procedures, hygiene protocols and social distancing guidelines. The OPD was moved in the hospital compound, and we began to dissuade patients from coming to the hospital for minor ailments because of the high risk of infection. Nevertheless, there is a constant stream of patients in the hospital. I and my colleagues who are in direct contact with patients are required to wear a bulky PPE kit. The wearing of the PPE kit is a daunting procedure, things have gotten even worse as the days get warmer and we sweat profusely while wearing the PPE kit and feel severely exhausted when we go back home. Tracing potential contacts and convincing people to quarantine remain other challenges. People who are put in quarantine often express dissatisfaction with the facilities. We try to provide the patients with the best facilities possible in the limited set up but challenges remain.

Amidst all this, whenever I switch on the television or glance through a newspaper, I am inundated with references to coronavirus as an “invisible enemy” against which we are waging a war. Doctors and medical professionals are being referred to as “frontline soldiers,” and “coronavirus warriors.” Hospitals are regarded as “war zones” and public health strategies have been equated to “battle plans.” On March 15, the Prime Minister of India appealed to the populace to “clap and beat thalis” as a mark of respect for health professionals who are working day and night to tackle the pandemic. People responded to this appeal with widespread enthusiasm. Paradoxically, people were indifferent to the plight of thousands of workers who lost their livelihood and earnings in urban areas amidst the pandemic. As a result, these daily wage workers started journeying to their native villages on foot. They walked hundreds of kilometres with young children on deserted highways with little access to food or water. As many as twenty two migrant workers lost their lives in a desperate attempt to reach home during the lockdown. Their health and safety has been completely side lined.

As I go to the hospital every day, I cannot help but think how far it is from a “war zone.” For us it is simply a place to cure, to heal and to restore life. Nowhere did this emerge more clearly than in the politicizing of the Tabhlighi Jamaat incident. When the Tabhlighi Jamaat became India’s worst coronavirus vector, it spawned tremendous hatred against the Muslim community. Some bigoted news channels, went as far as saying that the Muslim community is waging a “corona jihad” against India. We had Tabhlighi Jamaat admissions that very week, and for us they were like any other patients. We did not see them in terms of their religious affiliations, we only thought of them as the ailing who had come to us to restore their health. This realization had come to me quite early in my career. When I first started working, I realized that as doctors we have to treat blood, excretions and fecal matter. These tasks fall in the lap of the “lowest of the low” in India’s caste hierarchy. Do these hierarchies even matter when we are trying to save lives and protect humanity?

On TV news, you will be swamped with stories of “hope,” people who have successfully beaten the coronavirus, with their “grit” and “determination”. These stories however do not really uplift me. I know that people do not die from coronavirus because they fail to fight it like a medieval knight in the battlefield. During this ordeal, I have been confronted with heart wrenching cases, and these stories have stayed with me over time. The plight of the seven year old motherless boy who saw his father, a poor migrant worker die before his eyes shortly after coming to the hospital. The twenty two year old expectant mother who passed away in child birth, leaving behind a baby girl and two other young children. Neither of these patients died because of Covid-19, these deaths occurred due to poverty, squalor and infections which prevail widely in India. The hospital is not a battlefield, where we kill the enemy. Those who die and those who suffer here are amongst our own.

The other day, we had a grand celebration of “corona warriors” with flypasts, and military honours in all public hospitals in India. Our hospital too was honoured with a military salute and honours. However, I can’t help thinking that the real reward would be winning the respect of people in our public health system, where a public hospital would be equipped to provide quality healthcare to the poorest of the poor, where a doctor would be regarded as a “saviour” and not a “warrior” in an imaginary war which is being waged against the disease, but at the same time creating more victims of poverty, squalor and impoverishment.