APOCALYPSE

Beep…. Beep…. Lubb…. Dubb…. Beep…. Beep….

The readings are on the monitor. The vitals…. Blood Pressure…. Pulse Rate…. ECG machine had readings with highs and lows, crests, and troughs. The patient tries hard to not convert it to a straight line….

BEEEEP…. Yet again.

The room was filled with infusion pumps, nebulizers, oxygen cylinders, ventilators, and BIPAP machines.

Adding up to it, the formalin smell added an eerie pattern of alarm and anxiety affecting the mental state of attendees in the waiting room.

Just a mere visit to the hospital for a low-grade fever or cough or a small accident brings in great amount of fear and anxiety. Also, in an Indian health care setup, we also wonder how much of money we would have to pay for our treatments.

If the hospital stay exceeds, it could result in delirium or dementia or depression.

Uhm…. Delirium could be a state of confusion which could be because of some underlying illness or dehydration.

Dementia can lessen the ability of a person to think. Longer the period, the more prone to dementia.

Depression could be because of a loss of interest, or mood.

“How are you doing?” “Get well soon!” “Hoping for your speed recovery” “Hope you feel better soon!” It might come off as a simple question of whereabouts, but it has significant implications.

Bouquets and get well soon cards. These might alleviate the patient’s mood to a certain extent.

But however, the struggle of staying and suffering from the patient is as real as it can be. Physical exhaustion. Mental stress. Spiritual thinking. A patient will go through emotional turmoil.

It was nothing less than a routine seeing people praying in the corridors for their loved ones to regain life spirit.

Few people were even grieving over the loss of their loved ones. People run between corridors for medicines or search for donors for blood or organs.

Many others were in continuous need of information about the progress of the ones struggling battles between life and death.

Silence…. Prayers…. Tears…. Anger….

The walls of a hospital have been a witness to millions of grief stories.

“I was trying to sleep and then I’d hear people’s footsteps and it bugged me."

"I wouldn’t answer the people when they came in to ask me questions. You’re like ‘what do you want?’ and you just want them to go away."

"I thought it was going to be way scarier. I didn’t know what the room was going to look like. I thought operating rooms were like you see on TV, like big rooms with one little bed. It wasn’t like that."

These were a few varieties of replies from the patient’s end. Few sorrowful. Few regrets. Few happiness. Few anxiousness. A couple of emotions. A couple of things. All together.

These stories of emotion surplus have been perceived in the last five decades even more. The Intensive Care Unit have heard stories that has been unheard. Be it the Mrutunjay jaap or shlokas or Gayathri mantra.

World has been a spectator to an unprecedented form of how hospital beds were in complete demand than ever before. What was the storm?

It still gives me goosebumps even after 10 years of an entire hurricane. The health care sector had received the greatest blow ever.

This is Dr. Roop, a Paediatric surgeon by profession. This is my story. This is my story with my beloved sister. This is my story with health sector. This is my story and the year of 2020.