The Healers: Prejudice in pandemic

“When the pandemic hit last year, I had to do 8 hour continuous shifts in the ICU for Covid patients. Since we knew nothing of the disease, it was extremely scary not just for us but for the general public as well and perhaps that’s why they were far more cautious than they are now during the second wave. The virus has now become air-borne and the deciding factor of its severity doesn’t depend just on age anymore.

A local newspaper had reported the story of a pregnant woman who died due to Covid and owing to some superstitions, the crematorium refused to bury her since she had a fetus inside her. The family had to bring the dead body back to the hospital, where the dead fetus had to be surgically removed before she could get a proper cremation! In another instance, a mother of a 4 year old and a 1 month old baby succumbed to this disease because she overlooked her own symptoms trying to fulfill her motherly duties and was admitted in a very critical stage.

The number of deaths and sufferings have made us numb at times. I have my MD final exams coming up and I often tend to worry about how I would be faring and what if I get infected in the middle of the examination, but then I see these harrowing cases and wonder what am I even complaining about!

This pandemic has shown us that our medical infrastructure is in a dire need of…