From the Hand and Heart of a Covid Doctor

Pune, June 9, 2020: A post written by Dr Aseem Gargava, a 3rd year resident doctor at KEM Hospital Mumbai, has gone viral on social media. The post was shared by Resident Doctors KEM Hospital page on Facebook.

The post reads, “This is not a farmer’s hand who is continuously working in paddy fields to feed billions of the world.This is also not a soldier’s hand protecting the billions from the attacking enemies. This my dear friends and fellow countrymen, is a hand of your doctor working right now on a covid duty, somewhere in some part of this country, desperately trying his best to treat and reduce the Covid affected billions.

Even after working day and night with immense risk of getting infected, these are not the wrinkles of worry on our forehead,but this should not stop you from worrying because what is about to come in the next few months will decide the fate of billions of life. Right now india is at the beginning of a massive outburst of the pandemic though we rank 6th in overall cases of the world, and yes I call it as a beginning even after lakhs of cases because the number will go higher and higher. Mumbai being the mouth of this volcano is already starting to feel its heat when not even half the population is exposed to it.

The youth of this country needs to step ahead and take the responsibility of protecting their elders. Hospitals and health centres will soon be asking for health volunteers to render there services in such desperate state as you must’ve seen the sad state of affairs in viral videos of several healthcare setups doing rounds on social and electronic media. Even if they don’t ask, I request that our youth, instead of wasting time in tiktok, youtube and other meaningless things…try to step in and help out the hospitals and other social services.

It’s easy to say it’s not my job, but at some point of time our human resources in health will get exhausted and to be very honest its already started to exhaust. This is already happening in many other countries where healthy young health volunteers are pitching in and helping medical professionals and government to fight this battle, when everyone of us is so proud of being an Indian and having one of the young countries of the world, country is in dire need of voluntary services of younger generation.

Help your doctors as well as emergency service providers so that they can help the nation to come out of this crisis. Just because it is not visible doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. The pandemic is real and any contribution big or small, will always be counted as a cure to the cause.

Wake up, Stay home, Keep ur hands clean, Maintain Social Distancing, Wear a mask and Stay safe.”