“Nerves Can’t Stand, We Work for Wear and Tear”: Doctors Are Shocked by the Fourth Wave of Coronavirus in Belarus

• 7.10.2021, 11:10

Medical stories from different regions.

Hospitals are turning more and more departments into covid ones. People say that the staff is exhausted.

Nasha Niva recorded the observations of doctors from different regions.

"There is a negative number of places - the load is 105-110%."

“It's worse than the first wave,” one of the capital's doctors describes the situation.

“There is a negative number of places - the load is 105-110%. Somewhere they added extra beds, and somewhere they adapted the former utility rooms as wards," says a doctor about the situation in the 10th hospital. "Mostly there is enough oxygen, it's nearly enough. This is taking into account the fact that there have been additional places since the first wave."

Despite the load, they do not send the untreated people home; they keep them as long as necessary until they are ready to be discharged.

Ophthalmology remained a "clean" department in the hospital. It was separated by walls from the rest of the clinic and has a separate entrance.

“The disease has grown younger. Now the majority of patients are 40-60 years old, but it happens that people younger than 30 get into intensive care. Most likely because another strain is circulating - the same delta.

There are very few vaccinated, and they tolerate the disease much easier. I think there were two such people in the intensive care unit. Both of them were vaccinated during the first batch more than half a year ago, and revaccination was already required", - the doctor shares his observations.

According to him, there are more patients now, and they are more severely ill. There are more people with respiratory failure, persistent fever, which is difficult to bring down, complications occur more often.

“Nerves can’t stand, we work for wear and tear”

In the 5th hospital in Minsk, the neurological building was redesigned for the coronavirus.

“Every day they demand more discharge or transfer of patients, but these places fill up very quickly. Our building was not designed for pulmonary patients, there is no oxygen (central distribution) on three floors, so there is not enough.

The old building, a department with 45 beds, was recently opened. The conditions are not the best, but there is oxygen. This department has already been filled,” says the doctor.

It is hard work, as there are not enough doctors in the departments.

“Nerves can’t stand it, so much negativity is constantly poured out on us. We work for wear and tear, but people still swear, as if we are to blame that there are no places in the whole city.

We work twenty-four hours a day, and we can't leave the "dirty" zone till night, we don't even have time to go to the toilet. And to eat is a luxury at all, yesterday we ate only at 10 pm. There were still people, but we were already off our feet.

Now the exhaustion and emotional burnout of doctors is clearly visible, and then it will only get worse, you cry after shifts. There is no talk of any personal life, I come home and can’t do anything,” the interlocutor says emotionally.

During the epidemic, doctors have accumulated experience with covid, new methods of treatment, so they manage to help more people. According to the doctor, there are many deaths but fewer than in previous waves.

“It should be borne in mind that, over the entire period, a lot of people from the vulnerable group died - the elderly, immunodeficient with concomitant pathology.

All hospitals keep statistics on patients who become ill after vaccination. This is a small number of people, and they do have coronavirus in a severe form. I vaccinated my parents."

"There is no feeling of a general catastrophe, but there is a problem with planned aid."

In Vitsebsk, the regional hospital has been partially redesigned for coronavirus: the urological building, nephrological and additional intensive care beds. The covid seats are all taken.

“They are occupied because people from everywhere try to get to the regional hospital in every possible way. It actually treats covid better than any other hospital.

There is no planned hospitalization for non-covid beds, but there are enough places for emergency assistance.

In many other hospitals, departments for the coronavirus have been repurposed. In principle, there are places. There is a feeling that there are still free beds in the city as a whole. There are a lot of severe patients, but this is understandable since, with an increase in the number of patients, the number of severe patients proportionally increases,” explains the Vitebsk doctor.

There is no feeling of a general catastrophe: Vitsebsk is not the first time in such a situation. The only problem is with patients who need routine care. Cancer care is especially affected.

“Everything looks like the first wave, but we already know something. Doctors get sick less than then (there is a large percentage of those vaccinated, and we infect each other less).

There is no fundamental difference in the age of patients: the older the patients, the more sick they are. The lower the social status, the more often they are infected."

"If in August there were 10 calls per day, now there are 50"

The regions have also a tense situation.

“The number of calls with coronavirus has increased significantly. If in August, it was 10 per day, now it is 50,” says a doctor from Maryina Horka.

There are now many children and people aged 40-50 among the patients in the area. There are vaccinated among them, especially among the contacts of the first level.

“The vaccine does not exclude the possibility that a person will get sick, it relieves the symptoms. Vaccinated people carry the coronavirus in a mild or asymptomatic form. Some themselves say that they have not got sick, although they live in the same apartment with a sick person."

The issue of hospitalization is usually resolved before the arrival of the ambulance team - it is decided by the doctor who started the treatment and sent the person for a smear or x-ray.

“If there is pneumonia, a positive PCR test, oxygen saturation below normal, then they are taken to the hospital. On my shifts, we took patients to our district hospital."

The doctor says that the peak of the wave is expected closer to winter, as is the case with other seasonal diseases.