A PRIMARY CARE PHYSICIAN AT THE HEART OF COVID-19 BY DR
PALLAVI PRATHIVADI, 2020 Fulbright Future Scholar (Medicine/Monash University)
I had planned to move to Stanford in the first week of June as a Fulbright Scholar. April and May 2020 were meant to be full of goodbye parties, comparing shipping rates, and packing up my life in Melbourne to spend a year undertaking my PhD with a terrific team at the Stanford School of Medicine. Instead, I have postponed my trip, and written an Advanced Care Plan for myself if I end up critically unwell with coronavirus.
I am preparing for surge workforce and being called in to help at the local hospital. I’ve stopped hugging my family and I am back wearing scrubs to reduce the risk of carrying contaminated clothes into my house. For my 31st birthday last week, my friend Sarah, an anaesthetics registrar, gave me a brand-new reusable P95 respirator with filters. Was there ever a time I thought a gift like that would have moved me to tears? No. I have worked in the same clinic for 3 years now; it’s small and wonderful. I know all of the families of the staff and often immunise their kids. 6
We have four nurses; Brooke is in her third trimester of pregnancy with a toddler at home and is still working. Winnie is a breastfeeding mother, intermittently expressing between patients and is still working. Cindy got married last weekend and is still working (no honeymoon).
Emily is trying to manage the schoolwork of her two kids while they are at home and is still working. All of our doctors, nurses and receptionists have chosen to keep working as normal during the pandemic, knowingly placing themselves at risk.
"It’s been reported that 10% of COVID-19 positive people in Victoria are healthcare workers. But we are not simply statistics. We are also people with families and lives..." It’s been reported that 10% of covid-19 positive people in Victoria (where I live) are healthcare workers- but we are not simply statistics. We are also people with families and lives, and without adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) and with increasing rates of covid-19, the wonderful nurses you have just read about are at risk.
You might have followed the backlash on social media when this point is sometimes made about a healthcare worker; that we are choosing to place ourselves at risk. That no-one is forcing us to see patients. That is true, but do you honestly expect most doctors and nurses will bail during a pandemic and deny care to patients? We are here to help. And in return we are all begging help from you; conserve PPE for those who need it most and stay home. We are trying to move to telehealth to reduce face-to-face contact with patients. I never learnt about telehealth in medical school. I am learning it now, as a consultant specialist GP in metropolitan Melbourne. Our rural colleagues have far more experience and are providing the world with very useful advice. I’m sorry we needed a pandemic to widely embrace telehealth; video and telephone consultations with doctors help thousands more patients access healthcare in a timely manner.
