The world is presently battling a pandemic of a contagious infectious disease called corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19).The new COVID-19 is caused by the SARS-Cov-2 Virus whose primary etiological hosts are found to be bats and it’s been found that this virus entered a human host from another intermediate host which may be a domestic or wild animal consumed as food, The outbreak of this disease begin in Chinas Wuhan city of Hubei province on November of 2019 from the place of outbreak this disease spread over various countries and affected thousands of people outside china. On screening the seriousness of this spread of the virus the WHO declared it as a Pandemic on 11th March 2020.
It has been past five months the world is battling against this pandemic evil to which more than 2.38 lakh people have lost their life and more than 3 lakh people are currently battling against the evil corona virus. Almost 213 countries are being fighting by putting their at most effort to save their citizens in this difficult situation. The world is facing such huge causality for the first time after world war-II. The corona virus pandemic is analogous to a full fledged war but with an invisible enemy, In the conventional war the soldiers fight the battle against the enemy troops, But in present war our health care workers are fighting the war against Covid-19 but not at the borders, instead beside the hospital beds treating the people infected with the Novel corona virus.
THE WHO 2006: working together for health has brought renewed attention to the global human resources required to produce a healthy health care system. It estimated that nearly 57 countries have an absolute shortage of 2.3 million physicians, nurses and midwives. These shortages showcase that many countries have insufficient numbers of health professionals to deliver essential health interventions.
In a large developing country like India where 9.27 lakh doctors are presently serving in the health care sector, the doctor to patient ratio is 1:1445 but in contrast the who recommends a ratio of 1:1000 ie for every 1000 people there need to be a doctor. Shortage is not just for doctors in India there is shortage of even nurses too where India has nurse: patient ratio of 1.7:1000 but who recommends the ratio to be 3:1000.
So by looking at the above numbers and estimations it is evident that there is a huge work load for the health care workers who are in less number to effectively cope up with the present pandemic situation.
The present pandemic has mirrored the ability of so called developed nations health care systems which are massively failing to prevent the spread of the virus and being ranked top in number of deaths and infected cases.
The hospitals are overwhelmed in number of patients being admitted beyond their maximum capacity which has created an overburden to the health care system. Not all patents with the covid positive are cooperative we have come across cases of assaults on health care workers who are treating them Beyond this There is high risk of transmission of the corona virus to the health care workers who are closely associated with the patients with active diseases which makes them mandatory to go for quarantine for a period of time after their duty for certain days. There is regular input of patients into the hospitals for treatment of ailments other than corona virus disease which has lead to increase the working time of the health care workers. Now the seasonal diseases like dengue are widely being reported in India which will also bring lot of patient load into the hospital where the health care worker are needed to be ready for another usual battle against seasonal diseases. Due to over burden of the increasing cases most of the health care workers are residing in the hospital premises not only to save patients but also to save their own family from this evil disease hence it makes them mentally unhappy. Most countries in the world are facing a huge shortage of personal protective equipments (PPE), masks, and other protective gears essentially required to protect the health care workers from getting the infection while treating, this shortage has left life of health care workers in risk.
Not just the physical workload on health care workers during this pandemic situation but also there are disturbing statistics that cause mental burden too for our corona warriors ,Spain has declared that at least 12,298 health care workers have tested positive for the disease – 14.4% of the total reported cases. More than 60 doctors have died in Italy.A new study shows that the COVID-19 workload is affecting health care workers through insomnia.
A group of Chinese researchers found more than one-third of frontline health care workers responding to the covid19 outbreak reported symptoms of insomnia (lack of sleep). These findings were published in Frontiers in Psychiatry.
Now there is a global pressure and workload on pharmacy professionals and working scientists to discover a vaccine against the novel corona virus disease. The researchers are working all day by putting at most effort to discover a safe and effective vaccine. Though the phase one clinical trials are being started but yet the workload on researchers and pharmaceutical companies is not less and is not going to end even after a successful drug trial.
Despite all these pressure, tension, restlessness our health care workers are battling against the evil successfully. The credits that we give them by applauds is not enough we need to learn respecting them and their work not only at this crises but throughout our life because the day they step into this health care profession they sacrifice lot of things and see their happiness in serving the patients in their difficult times. So let’s respect and protect the one who saves our health because they are more precious than any valuable thing on planet because they save lives.
ARPB Blogger ID: ARPBGZ36
