Doctor shares bone-chilling account of the coronavirus outbreak in Italy

The world is in a state of panic as the people affected by the COVID-19 outbreak increase every day. As of now the number of affected people is close to 145,000 worldwide with 83 cases having been reported in India. However, some areas of the world have been hit worse than the others. China, Italy, South Korea and Iran have been hit severely. Italy, one of the worse hit, saw a sudden rise in the number of positive coronavirus cases.With the number of infected increasing by the minute, the hospitals and medical staff in the country had a tough time managing the pandemic. All non-urgent activities in the hospitals were suspended to accommodate the coronavirus patients.
Dr Daniele Macchini, an ICU physician in Italy, posted on Facebook on March 6 describing the working of the hospital on that day as compared to before the pandemic broke.
He posted, “All this rapid transformation brought an atmosphere of silence and surreal emptiness to the corridors of the hospital that we did not yet understand, waiting for a war that was yet to begin and that many (including me) were not so sure would ever come with such ferocity.”
“The war has literally exploded, and battles are uninterrupted day and night. But now that need for beds has arrived in all its drama. One after the other the departments that had been emptied fill up at an impressive pace. The boards with the names of the patients, of different colours depending on the operating unit, are now all red and instead of surgery you see the diagnosis, which is always the damned same: bilateral interstitial pneumonia.”
He paints a vivid picture of the entire staff coming together to tackle the patients pouring in. “And there are no more surgeons, urologists, orthopedists, we are only doctors who suddenly become part of a single team to face this tsunami that has overwhelmed us. Cases are multiplying, they arrive at a rate of 15-20 admissions per day all for the same reason. The results of the swabs now come one after the other: positive, positive, positive. Suddenly the E.R. is collapsing,” his post reads.
“Reasons for the access always the same: fever and breathing difficulties, fever and cough, respiratory failure. Radiology reports always the same: bilateral interstitial pneumonia, bilateral interstitial pneumonia, bilateral interstitial pneumonia. All to be hospitalized.”
The spread of the virus in the country has been sudden causing dearth of medical facilities and beds to treat everybody. “The staff is exhausted. I saw the tiredness on faces that didn't know what it was despite the already exhausting workloads they had. I saw solidarity of all of us, who never failed to go to our internist colleagues to ask, "what can I do for you now?” Doctors who move beds and transfer patients, who administer therapies instead of nurses. Nurses with tears in their eyes because we can't save everyone, and the vital parameters of several patients at the same time reveal an already marked destiny. There are no more shifts, no more hours. Social life is suspended for us. We no longer see our families for fear of infecting them. Some of us have already become infected despite the protocols,” says Dr Macchini in his Facebook post
With the outbreak having been declared a pandemic and most of the countries now affected, the best we can do is to follow all precautions diligently. Wash your hands as often as possible. Do not step out if you feel sick and consult a doctor if the symptoms worsen.