Having been stuck at home for the last few months, feeling like birds trapped in a cage, we have started to feel suffocated. The pandemic situation has managed to cripple one and all. It has started to get to the best of us.
Remember a time when all we wanted was to stay at home, spend all our days lazying around, watching our favorite movies or tv series? Well, as they say, be careful what you wish for. Now, all we want is to step outside, feel the fresh air, even if it is for five minutes. With anxiety and stress being the constant mood, we’ve started to lose it.
Although, despite everything that we’re facing, there is always someone who has it worse, doctors, for example. When the pandemic started, they were as lost and confused as the rest of us. Did they give up hope though? No, they put on their hero capes (read: PPE kits) and began fighting this war against covid. Truly, they are the heroes that we need but do not deserve.
And, how do we choose to treat these heroes? We treat them with violence. Thousands of health care workers, from all over the world, have either been physically or verbally abused. Unfortunately, this is not a new thing too. With the rise in the number of deaths of covid patients, their families feel enraged and end up blaming the doctors. But, are the doctors really the ones at fault here?
Do you think they’re immune to the virus? No, they are not. They are as much at risk as any of us, if not more. They risk their lives and their family members’ as they try to save you. So many doctors have lost their lives to the pandemic too. Instead of paying homage and sending condolences to the family of these fallen soldiers, we choose to blame them. In India itself, covid wards are being ransacked and the doctors assaulted. This has been going on for a year now.
While the fear that you feel about your health or a loved one’s or the anger and grief of losing someone is understandable, is taking it all out on the doctors justifiable? This violent situation has become so much worse that some people are terming it as an epidemic in the midst of a pandemic.
Governments are being forced to intrude and make tougher laws to deal with this horrific situation. The Indian government has made some necessary changes in the epidemic law and now any act of assault against health care workers is punishable for up to seven years. In Sudan, the authorities have made an announcement stating the creation of new police forces that’ll protect these health care workers who have been protecting you. In England, paramedics are being advised to carry cameras with them so that they can record the vicious attacks they face.
The only thing all of us want is good health, we want to live a healthy life and these doctors are the only thing that is helping us in doing so. Sometimes, our selfish desires obscure our vision and we’re unable to see the suffering of the people around us. Do you think being a doctor is easy? Doctors are being called in at any time of the day, some of them are working throughout, without even taking proper breaks to eat food. Let’s not even begin to talk about the issues that the doctors in rural areas might be facing. They do not even have proper sanitation measures.
If we want to win this battle against covid, we need to stop fighting among ourselves. The health care workers deserve to be treated with utmost love and care and not with physical attacks. Sure, doctors are godlike, but in some situations, even god cannot save lives.
Fortunately, the situation has started to become better. With the number of covid cases declining, people are now calming down. Now that they have regained their faith in doctors, they are booking their vaccination slots as their belief in the healthcare system is coming back. Many have already gotten both doses of the vaccines. Things are finally falling back into place. While nothing about this is normal, and there is no way we can return to what life was before covid, it sure seems like the worst is now behind us.
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