Corona Diaries - 24

It's been more than a year...

We are burntout.

We are exhausted.

We've been dealing with COVID19 for more than a year now. I still don't think that we've learnt from our mistakes. I wonder at times whether people are becoming rebellious; some seem to contradict themselves with what they say and how they behave. It sounds tedious to be saying the same thing over and over again, I know it's very irritating to continue listening to the same advice; imagine how it's even more irritating to be the one giving the advice. At times it seems as if you're speaking to a wall. Nobody listens. Nobody cares. Everyone listens to advice on WhatsApp or social media and chooses to believe that rather than listening to people who are actually dealing with the patients and have to deal with their complications and possible death on a daily basis.

We have lost so many lives due to COVID over the past year. Some have been attributed directly to COVID-19 and the released number is 1,105 so far. Believe me, that is no where close to the exact number. Many have died in their homes, others have died from complications of COVID after being discharged and many more are directly related to COVID however that's not what's been stated in their death certificates. Maybe it's because they have already completed the 10 days, maybe its because they're not on assisted breathing devices or on ECMO or it might have been due to a superadded bacterial infection. This doesn't negate the fact that COVID was one of the reasons that they passed away. I believe the number is more than 10 times the actual number that has been released to us.

What about the vaccine? People have been saying they want a cure and a solution for a year now. Everyone has been waiting for it. This is the solution that we've all been waiting for, so why isn't everyone getting vaccinated? What's the point of complaining for a whole year for a solution and then when its finally here, at your doorstep, you refuse it? This is why I don't understand people. I cannot understand this contradictory behavior. The same people that were complaining about COVID are currently complaining about the vaccine. Why is our population so hard to please? Other nations are back to normal life. In the UK, kids will go back to schools in April and life will hopefully be back to normal by the summertime. In Australia, it seems as if they haven't been affected by COVID at all. In Canada, kids are already going to schools and their lives haven't been interrupted. All civilised nations are dealing with this correctly, efficiently, in a manner that makes sense logically. Why can't we reach that stage of maturity and sophistication?

Does imposing a partial lockdown make sense? Does it make sense to keep everything open like malls for example for 12 hours a day where everyone will go crazy and walk around an enclosed space for the majority of the day. At the same time let's close all parks, gardens and public places and keep them closed for the entirety of the day. Where will people go? Where can children play and enjoy fresh air during the daytime? You're forcing them to gather inside malls instead of outside. You're basically telling them to go to the malls, in crowds rather than letting them walk outside in the fresh air where social distancing is actually possible. Why are all the decisions in this country based on businesses and politics? If human life truly mattered, we would've gotten over this pandemic already. Unfortunately, human life doesn't seem to carry that much weight. Businesses matter. Money matters. Even politicians and what they say holds more value than medical opinions.

Why was it that medical personnel were showered with gratitude at the beginning of this pandemic and not anymore? Why are so many people against doctors? Why do most people say that we don't even deserve to be rewarded for the exceptional work that we've done over the past year? We've been promised financial rewards for more than 6 months and we still haven't received anything. We've been putting in more hours and we've become physically and emotionally burnt out; yet we're being treated without an ounce of gratitude. Why is that so? We have never asked to be rewarded. We do our jobs without complaining. Whilst the working capacity of other government as well as private sectors has gone down to 30%, we have always given 300%. How is it fair that we all still get paid the same? I get paid the same as someone who's basically been at home for the past year? How is that fair? Again, we never do what we do for financial gain. If we were in this just to make money, we would've done something else ages ago. No doctor is in this profession for the money, Believe me. We deal with so many things on a daily basis that no matter how much money we make, it will never be worth it.

When you deal with death on a daily or a weekly basis, this changes you to your core. No quantity of money will ever be worth the images of those helpless patients that will forever be imprinted in your brain. I still see those patients in my memories and sometimes in my dreams. I wonder whether we gave every patient the proper care and dignity that they deserved. Everyone needs to live and die in a dignified matter. I wonder at times whether we do too much or maybe even too little. And these thoughts break my heart.

We lost 3 patients in the past week. Dealing with death will always be difficult. All those patients were either elderly or too frail and their death was inevitable, yet there's a little voice in my head that will always wonder whether we did enough. Some people never have to deal with death and I envy those people. It's torture to see someone dying and being unable to help or offer anything extra. All we can hope for is that they died comfortably, with dignity and without any pain.

I recently found out that my favorite 96 year old patient passed away. I've known him ever since I started working in Amiri back in 2011. He would always come in to the hospital confused and delirious, but after treating his infection he would start perking up again and demanding to go home. He had so many admissions and many complications but he had an opinion that he would always state. His wife took excellent care of him even though she was much younger. We developed a close relationship with her, as a medical team. I love it when family members take good care of their elderly family members. You would think that is the norm, but unfortunately it isn't. We have so many patients that have been left in the hospital for years, forgotten by their family members and relatives. How did I find out that my patient passed away? I'll tell you how. The wife of another elderly patient told me.

"دكتوره حوراء بقولج شي."

"آمري حبيبتي."

"كنت بقولج ان ف تسلم عليج و على دكاترة الوحدة كلهم. ف مرت ي.ف مريضكم."

"الله يسلمها. وين شفتيها؟ احنا ما شفناها من لمه حولنا ريلها جابر لمه صار فيه كورونا مسكين."

"تدرين ان توفي؟"

"لا والله محد قالي."

"توفي من كورونا عقب عشر ايام بالمستشفى."

"والله ضيقتي خلقي ما كنت ادري ان توفي. الله يرحمه و يصبر اهله."

"اي والله قالتلي اسلم عليكم ، اقولكم ان بعد ما راح تشوفونها لأن ماكو سبب تيي المستشفى عشانه."

And my heart broke into a million pieces. My favorite patient passed away from COVID. He lived for 96 beautiful years. In the end, he passed away due to COVID without his loving wife by his side.

Did doctors ever ask to be rewarded? We never did. Do you think any kind of reward will be worth the heartbreak of losing patients? Do you think any kind of financial gain will erase the faces of our dead patients from our memories? Do you think any amount of money will ever be worth the tears of family members after losing the life of any family member?

We never wanted extra money or any rewards. All we ask for is a little bit of appreciation for what we do. We ask that you maintain social distancing and continue to wear your masks. We ask that you get vaccinated and ensure that all your loved ones are vaccinated too. We urge you to please stop spreading silly rumors about the vaccine, only listen to facts that are backed up by evidence based medicine from people who actually know what they're talking about.

Please get vaccinated.

Please help spreading awareness about the vaccine.

Please help us so we can get over this thing quickly.

Kuwait cannot afford to lose any more of its elderly population.

Soon, we will have no one left...