Write a diary entry of your feelings after meeting a doctor who bravely who worked for months together to save patients of the pandemic
Answers
Answer:
2 April 2020
Not that long ago the hospital had just a few Covid-positive patients, isolated inside rooms. By the start of this week we had two full wards designated as "red" or infectious zones. And two more turned red a day later.
One of the most overused phrases that we use as doctors is, "It's just a virus." It reassures our patients, and it covers up our own uncertainty. So for many the devastation that the coronavirus has wrought has been so unexpected.
By Wednesday, 14 of our patients had died.
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This is one of the big issues around Covid-19 - its high death rate. So while less than one in a 100 of those who get it will die of it, when you get into hospital that goes up to one in five, or one in six patients.
We are used to people dying in hospital, because it's often a place where people die. But normally we are reflective in our practice, we give time, and time is a great instrument for us in health care. But in the hospital today we are making rapid decisions about life and death - decisions about ventilation, about escalation care and when to make the decision about end of-life-care.
As palliative care consultant Dr Clare Rayment says, none of us wants to get it wrong.