If you think facing a virulent virus is child’s play, wait till you don a PPE
The idea of a runaway virus sends chills down the spines of most people.
Anyone with a vivid imagination would in no way be free of dread. Imagine the onset of contamination: malodorous infections running up and down one’s lungs; terror brought on by the appearance of skin lesions; internal and external hemorrhaging; abscesses filled with puss and thick fluids; inflamed patches of blood-soaked flesh on the chest and face; that feeling of rot and decay eating away at the bones while the patient is still alive. Disintegration and decomposition on the cellular level, for the most part.
Worse, a kind of stigma follows the patient wherever he or she goes. Disease the likes of ebola, influenza, the Bubonic plague, cholera, AIDS and now Covid-19, isolates victims from society in ways that are no different from the fate of criminals. Many are ostracized, spurned, shut out from the fellowship of neighbors, friends and family. Losing one’s job is a reality they have to face. The early days of Covid-19 saw communities here in Manila hurling stones at the houses of those who tested positive of the new coronavirus.
Health workers facing the threat of contagion were not spared the indignity of being treated like the scum of the earth. Poor nurses were driven out of their rented apartments, to say nothing of interns ending up sleeping along hospital hallways. Some doctors distanced themselves from loved ones for the duration of the treatment if only to save their children and spouses from contamination.
Outside of the threat to one’s life, the Covid-19 has likewise spelled the death of human dignity. During the cholera epidemic of the late 1800s, the houses of those infected were razed to the ground, leaving victims of the deadly disease altogether helpless and homeless.
Deadly diseases today have found their match not only in vaccines but in the use of personal protective equipment. PPEs they are called, these defensive suits safeguard medical frontliners as they do everything in their power to stop the spread of the disease.
A full PPE gear — which consists of coveralls, gown, surgical head cap, scrub suit, N95 face mask, face shield and goggles, gloves and foot covers (which are different from a dedicated pair of shoes) — costs somewhere between P500 to as high as P5,000 depending on its several levels of use.
Rules say that a doctor or a nurse cannot re-use PPEs to prevent contamination. Neither should it be washed. During each shift of roughly 8–12 hours, a medical frontliner must discard the previously used PPE for a new one each time he or she is called into service.
Much of the PPEs given by government have been used up during the early days of the pandemic. A good bulk of the PPEs being used today come from public donations.
They are not the most comfortable of outfits. It is probably one of the hottest things to wear even in an air-conditioned room. And by “hottest” I don’t mean fashionable. A mere hour in a PPE suit and frontliners begin to feel the discomfort brought on by the heat mixed with the increasing body temperature.
Goggles and visors, when worn for long periods, leave red scratches, marks and slight swellings on the face and round the eyes, also behind the ears as they rub painfully on the skin. Gloves leave the hands dry and sore after prolonged use.
Now imagine yourself on red alert, donning a PPE suit, scampering around the hospital’s ‘no-fly zone,’ for the next 12 hours of your shift, 8 hours if you’re lucky. Some frontliners, forced to work in double shifts of a little more than 24 hours to 48 hours, deprived even of a modicum of sleep, aren’t as fortunate.
During a pandemic where, on the whole, approximately 5,000 new infections are logged daily, a few hundreds rushed into your emergency room on any given day, a minute of rest or any semblance of comfort are foregone conclusions.
Speaking of sleep, did you know that lack of sleep compromises one’s immune system enough to make our doctors and nurses vulnerable to an attack of the virus? Do the Math.
Women doctors, nurses and interns stand as the most vulnerable to the hardships posed by wearing PPEs. Saving lives for the duration of an 8- to 12-hour shift requires a frontliner’s utmost attention, consigning any calls to the bathroom only as an end-of-shift activity. A woman’s monthly visits can pose an equally serious problem as chances for them to change feminine napkins are close to none.
Most frontliners, I was told recently, are encouraged to wear adult diapers to avoid rushing to the bathrooms. Other than the bathroom being a haven for germs, the wearing of adult diapers poses a risk of human wastes infecting a frontliner’s private parts when worn for long periods of time. Likewise, rashes and other skin aberrations develop.
Besides, one cannot, with any relative ease, slip in and out of a PPE gear. My good friend, Matthew Pirante Perez, whose job under lockdown saw him delivering equipment, food and whatever materials needed by doctors, said any mishandling of the PPE, especially when slipping out of it, could lead to infection.
He did all that while donning PPEs. “Don’t touch with un-gloved hands the outer side of the hazmat suit, the one exposed to the virus,” he said.
Likewise, supply has become so endangered that what frontliners wear at the beginning of each day must sustain them through a full 8- to 12-hour shift. How long public donations will last is anybody’s guess.
The strain that go with saving lives is no trifling matter. Even with PPEs, one cannot completely ignore the risk of infection. As such, numerous doctors and nurses have isolated themselves from their families for the better part of this five-month countrywide quarantine.
As of last count, close to 20 doctors have succumbed to the disease. Due to overcapacity, some key hospitals in major cities have decided recently to close their doors to new patients. Our frontliners are virtual prisoners inside hospitals made even more dangerous by air-conditioning.
I can likewise only imagine what doctors and nurses have to go through with meager supplies and equipment at their disposal. Top this with the burden of deciding who must avail of their care — the seriously infected or mild, asymptomatic patients — and what we have is a scenario which could prove catastrophic to the emotional and physical well-being of the medical staff.
At the root of all this sacrifice is our frontliners’ undying resolve to revolutionize how our country deals with the spread of the virus. But with scarcely any help from government, our doctors and nurses are forced to think they are fighting a losing battle.
Being threatened by the President in his recent press conference only reinforces frontliners’ fears: that at the end of each day their efforts remain unappreciated, their sacrifice made to look like child’s play.
A frontliner’s life today is worth a million or so other lives. Politicians come and go, they are made not to last. As for doctors and nurses, they have become indispensable. In this benighted country where, for decades, we have lost medical practitioners to foreign health institutions paying better wages, a medical frontliner’s death due to Covid-19 is one too many.
I hate to see the day when what’s left of our doctors and nurses — beaten, exhausted, insulted, threatened and forced into rethinking their lot in life — would leave the country for way better opportunities abroad. I have no reason to blame them if such were the case.
If PPEs remain scarce, and cannot protect them against the greater contagion of threats and indifference from this largely good-for-nothing government, then why bother to stay?
In order to fulfill their oath, doctors and nurses must remain alive. They, too, have the right to live.
