Posted On: 2021-05-24 07:09:47
Covid19
After Covid19 was declared as a Pandemic by the World Health Organisation, the world came to a halt. To ensure everyone’s safety, inter-country, as well as intra-country lockdown, was imposed almost everywhere. During the lockdown, people were requested to stay home to ensure their safety. This lockdown affected the daily hustle of everyone’s life, especially the life of the frontline workers.
Frontline workers
While some were spending quality time with their families in the lockdown imposed by the government, these frontline workers were getting prepared for a biomedical war against Covid19 away from their families. Right from doctors to the garbage cleaners, each one of them is trying to secure the safety of everyone. They are still risking their lives just to protect millions of other people. They are continuously working for days without seeing or hugging their families to avoid them getting infected. In this war against the Covid19 virus, many of them even lost their lives.
Healthcare staff
The majority of the frontline workers consist of healthcare staff which involves doctors, nurses, attenders, and others who are working as support staff (cleaners, ambulance drivers, medical equipment suppliers, security guards, and many more). They are fighting day and night to save as many lives as possible. Many of these healthcare workers stayed in hospitals to avoid getting their families infected. In this fight, almost 17,000 hardworking healthcare workers from all across the globe have lost their lives to Covid 19, according to a report published by Amnesty International.
Doctors
The healthcare staff is headed by doctors from every field, not just the ones fighting in the Covid19 ward. Doctors’ rights from dentists to allopathic doctors are fighting together as one. Each of them is trying their best to contribute to this war.
Supervising and Nursing staff
Nursing staff lead by nurses and ward supervisors are working 24/7 tirelessly and are at their best regardless of the situation. During these turbulent times, this innovative sector of the healthcare system is trying its best to provide medical and physical support as well as emotional care to everyone, especially the people severely infected with the virus.
MBBS and nursing students
Due to the shortage of medical staff and the worsening of the situation many final year MBBS students along with final year nursing students are volunteering for COVID19 duty. These students are trying their best in assisting doctors as much as they can. MBBS graduates working as first-year residents in hospitals are witnessing deaths at such a large scale that is depressing. Still getting their emotions together these residents are fighting Covid19 with a renewed spirit. The Government of India is also encouraging MMBS and nursing pass-outs as well as final year students to help in this biomedical war by offering these students a chance of getting extra credits and government jobs soon when the Pandemic is over.
Scientists
Scientists played an important role in researching the virus DNA and creating vaccines according to it. Though they failed several times during the trials, they were a step closer to success with every failure. After a lot of effort, they were able to create an effective vaccine. Though they are making efforts to make a more effective vaccine. Indian scientists’ have contributed to the world a powerful vaccine known as Covaxin developed by Bharath Biotech and an Anti-Covid drug developed by DRDO known as 2-Deoxy-D-Glucose as a secondary treatment to moderate to severely affected Covid positive patients.
Pharmacist staff
Pharmacists play an important role in providing appropriate medications and getting the best results. During the start of Covid19, there was not much knowledge about the virus or the creation of a vaccine. This was the time that pharmacists helped the most by trying to lower the effect of the virus by providing a mixture of different medicines. Most of the mixtures were temporarily effective. These pharmacists along with scientists were able to create different vaccines recently. The pharmacy staff at the pharmacy outlets are exposed to potent Covid carriers and affected patients, constantly.
Support staff
The underappreciated sector of the healthcare system has proved to be the most important during the Covid19 pandemic. Ambulance drivers play an important role in picking up the Covid positive patients from their homes and then dropping them back when after they are Covid free. A few who lose this fight against Covid19 are mostly transported directly from the hospital to the crematorium- by ambulance drivers and ward boys. These ward boys cremate the bodies of the dead patients in the absence of their family members as the bodies are not allowed to be returned to the families to avoid the spread of the virus. The security staff help with the secured transportation of life-saving oxygen cylinders, PPE kits, and vaccines which is important and is not possible without their involvement.
Armed forces personnel, state, and central police officers
Defense officers right from local police officers to army officials are patrolling the streets ensuring that no one leaves their house except for essential workers and emergency travelers. These warriors fight crime as well as the virus at the same time. They were assisting in the safe admission of Covid19 positive patients to the hospitals from their homes ensuring a smooth transfer. They have fun and innovative ways to make anti-maskers wear masks and follow the restrictions. Some of these innovative ways are by doing the caught anti-maskers pooja (Indian traditional way of worshipping god), putting them in fake ambulances, conducting fake funerals on roads, and much more. To date over a lakh police personnel have been tested Covid19 positive while more than a thousand of this infected personnel have lost their lives.
Municipal workers, guards, and sweepers
Though the risk of getting infected is high, these municipal workers leave their houses every morning to clean the streets, collect garbage, provide water to every locality, and much more. They are the ones who sanitize streets, especially the building of the Covid19 affected patients. Some of them don’t even have proper kits to ensure their safety. Guards ensuring the safety of the people living in societies and buildings with minimum wage have stayed strong during Covid19. They have the fear of getting infected but they still work hard as they have a family to feed. Hundreds of these workers have lost their lives amid other frontline workers to Covid19.
Disaster management staff
Disaster management staff are always on high alert. And this alertness has increased during this pandemic. They have widely contributed to planning safety measures for the citizens and are helping defense workers with the management. Though Covid19 is one issue with that, multiple emergencies still occur. Examples can be landslides in the rural areas and recently about how the disaster management staff helped in the evacuation of the people living near the shores during cyclones. The Cyclone Mani over the Bay of Bengal, Kerala flood, Bihar Floods, Assam floods, Cyclone Tauktae, locust attack, Simlipal forest fire, Uttrakhand Forest fire during the Pandemic crisis made the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) be on their toes facing the double risks of natural disasters and Covid19.
ASHA workers
Accredited Social Health Activists, a community of health workers instituted by the Ministry of Health and Family welfare are a part of India Rural Health Mission are conducting awareness projects in rural areas across the country to make people understand the virus and the need to protect them. They maintain a census of the vaccinated people, give primary medical care, and assist during crucial deliveries of babies in many places, especially in rural areas.
Delivery workers and NGO workers
Many delivery workers are risking their lives to provide essentials and even non-essential products to different houses just to ensure that everyone stays at home safely. Some of the notable ones were Swiggy, Zomato, and Amazon. At the same time, many NGO workers who are providing essentials to the needy are working continuously to reach as many people as possible. They are too risking their lives just to make sure no one sleeps hungry. The notable NGOs who were doing the good work were UNICEF, Child Help Foundation, and Hemkunt Foundation.
Crowdfunding
Crowdfunding platforms are coming together and doing their part in helping these frontline workers risking their lives. Many of these crowdfunding platforms have collected and donated funds for the arrangement of essential kits not just for the underprivileged but also for the frontline workers. Just like others Filaantro, other crowdfunding platforms also raised campaigns to provide oxygen cylinders, PPE kits, oxygen concentrators, and many other protective kits to the healthcare industry and the Covid affected.
Inspiring Heroes
At the start of Covid19, the testing of people having symptoms of COVID19 took weeks but after the great effort of Virologist Minal Dakhave Bhosale of Mylab’s research and development chief, it was possible to make a testing kit known as Patho Detect which gave accurate results in just a couple of hours. The most inspiring part of Minal Dakhave’s hard work was that she was on a timeline of making the testing kit as soon as possible, as the due date of delivering her baby was approaching. Instead of 3 to 4 months, the kit was prepared in 6 weeks itself with checks and rechecks done again and again for accurate results. Her pregnancy was complicated but still, she even worked the afternoon shift before she was taken to the hospital for the delivery. Moments before her delivery time she submitted the kit to Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) and her testing kit was the first kit in India to have 100% accuracy. Recently, Mylab announced that a self-check kit will be available at retail outlets just for an amount of Rs.250.
Volunteers of the art of living foundation came to understand the pain of the wage workers and villagers affected during the lockdown. They knew they had to do something to help these people. With this initiative, the team of volunteers started their journey to provide ration to villages of Kalchini Block of West Bengal which shares the border with Bhutan. They provided almost a month’s ration to people of 25 villages living in the cluster form. These villages were inaccessible through vehicles as they had no proper roads. But the volunteers did not give up and walked hours and even a whole day to reach these villages while carrying ration kits on their shoulders. Though they were not frontline workers, for the people of the villages these volunteers were frontline Heros.
Dr. Zaheer Abdul Majeed, a senior resident doctor in AIIMS, risked his own life to save his patient. He was about to break his Ramzan fast when he was called to shift a middle-aged Covid19 positive patient from AIIMS to a Trauma Center especially made for Covid19 positive patients. He immediately reached the ambulance for the transfer. The doctor noticed an accidental shift in the tube placed in the windpipe of the patient and knew that it could be fatal. The doctor knew that due to the safety goggles the reintubation on spot was not possible and a small mistake would have led to the patient's death. To intubate the windpipe properly the doctor removed his safety goggles immediately and re-intubated the tube safely. This increased his risks of being affected by the virus but still, it did not stop Dr. Majeed to secure the life of his patient. Though after this incident he was put under 14-day quarantine to ensure his safety he was highly praised for his brave effort.
Padmashree awardee Dr. K K Aggarwal, a 62- year-old cardiologist, the head of Heart Care Foundation of India (HCFI), and the former president of Indian Medical Association (IMA) lost his life to Covid19 on the evening of 11th May 2021. He was admitted to AIIMS after being diagnosed with Covid19. He was a well-respected doctor and saved thousands of lives during his entire career. He made informative videos about many diseases and made people aware of Covid19 through many of his videos. In his last educational video on 27th April 2021, he informed his followers about how he was diagnosed with Covid and said ‘Picture Abhi Baki Hai Mere Dost’. He will always be in our hearts and this great soul will be remembered forever. He also said ‘The show must go on’.
These stories are just a few of the hundreds of lockdown stories of these Heroes who risked everything and helped people in need. These frontline workers are making great efforts to save as many lives as possible. We need to show them our support by doing our part in providing protective gear, medical equipment, and also morally supporting these heroes to continue the show, as Dr. K K Aggarwal would have wanted them to do so.
“We always thought that all heroes wear colored capes but this Pandemic made us understand that the real heroes wear invisible ‘I’ll save you even if it costs my life’ capes.”
Author : Hritika Singh
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