Dr Lara Norris, a community service doctor based at George Hospital in the Western Cape, has penned a letter to South Africans detailing frontline workers’ struggle against the third wave of coronavirus. Dr Norris didn’t mince words about the horrific scenes they deal with daily and the emotional toll it takes on them.
“A letter to each and every South African …
It’s another wave. You’d think we’d know what we’re doing by now. For healthcare workers? It feels like we’re in an ocean. I’ve seen smiling faces full of optimism descend into cynicism. I’ve seen more and more doctors turn to therapy. Turn to alcohol and drugs. We don and we doff. We’re trying to catch up. But it’s an episode of Wiley coyote and the Roadrunner. And we don’t know where the end point is.
We’ve been let down by our government. Covid-19 funds have been mismanaged. I’ve watched our colleagues post-community service sit at home. Yet we have this shortage of doctors. We imported Cuban trained doctors and our government nominated them for the Nobel prize. A slap in the face to those on the front line. Money wasted when we have some of the best trained doctors on the planet.
We’ve been let down by our colleagues. We expect the impossible from junior staff. We expect fresh-faced interns with no ICU nor Covid-19 experience to run full Covid-19 ICUs. A generation of doctors who will survive the pandemic and probably walk out with PTSD or depression. Or an anxiety disorder. How is that fair on our interns and those working their community service?
Finally we’ve been let down by SA. We don’t ask for much. We just ask that you wear a mask. We ask that you clean your hands. We ask that you stay at home when you can. When you walk around with your mask over your chin. When you spread blatant lies on social media. When you use an anti-PARASITIC for a virus (Ivermectin) and find every obscure article from obscure uncredited source to scare each other from getting a proven vaccine. Just to let you all know, healthcare workers who have been vaccinated and have contracted Covid-19: 94% have mild disease, 4% have moderate, 2% severe disease. Vaccines work. Stop spreading lies on Facebook.
A YouTube video does not discredit academia who research and track data. South Africans, start looking after your healthcare workers. No-one on this planet is more tired of this pandemic than we are. We are tired. We are depressed. We are demotivated. We are sick of preaching the same story to a wall. No-one is going to be there for you when we aren’t around.”
Dr Lara Norris, a community service doctor based at George Hospital in the Western Cape, who is tired, battered and struggling against the Covid-19 third wave.”
- On Thursday, 22 910 new cases pf coronavirus were reported and 460 deaths recorded – bringing the total to 63 499 deaths since the pandemic started.
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