We Live for Each Other, by Tamorish Kole, New Delhi
Born and raised in Kolkata, West Bengal, and now residing in New Delhi, Tamorish is the President of the Asian Society for Emergency Medicine.
I don’t remember the date, but I’m sure it was about 10:30 p.m. at night in the month of March, 2020. I received a call from a very senior government officer.
“Tamorish, I am contacting you to ask for your support to reconfigure your hospital for the treatment of COVID-19 patients,” he said.
Unbelievable! I head an emergency department and had recently been given the additional responsibility of looking after clinical governance. Our hospital has a small team, and panic about COVID-19 was engulfing everyone.
I responded, “I will think about it.”
I was told, “You must do it. This is the need of our mother nation.”
In the next 15 minutes, I called our hospital leadership and our chairman. Like me, they said, “OK, we will think about it.”
The next morning, I got ready for my shift, and on the way to the hospital, I witnessed the strictness of lockdown, and people struggling to meet their daily needs. I reached the hospital and shared the story of the previous night’s phone calls with some of my teammates.
Everyone echoed, “We cannot do it.”
What followed for a week was personally very tough for me. Colleagues, teammates, and nurses putting their papers of resignation in, for the reason that we may turn into a COVID-19 hospital.
On March 27th, our chairman decided to dedicate the hospital for the treatment of COVID-19 patients. We were still figuring out how we would commission our project. Local government officials showed up and offered support and assistance. My adrenaline rush continued for the simple reason that we must deliver this.
I am an alumnus of a program in crisis and disaster management. Way back in 2013, I had learned that during a disaster, when hospitals get overwhelmed, they can still cope with the load by joining hands, sharing resources, and distributing the patient load. Technically, this is known as healthcare networking. But now, every hospital was struggling to safeguard staff and patients from the risk of viral spread. Moreover, all hospitals, including my own, wanted to function within their boundaries. Who would help?
But from crisis comes learning, and from adversity comes opportunity. We got expressions of interest to work together, from three other leading hospitals. Within weeks, we became one family. The doctors, the engineers, the operations teams, all working together for one cause. Professional boundaries, which we built over decades, washed away in no time. The meetings that previously were only possible in scientific conferences were happening daily, and I could see everyone overcoming their fear.
We finally started on May 11th. Patients came in, then went back home. Staff checked in for their shift and worked hard. Even some of them contracted the disease, and they got treated in our hospital and recovered.
Finally, my mom called me in one morning and enquired about a press release about our hospital. She was genuinely concerned and categorically warned me about the risks I was facing. But by that time, I had my co-warriors and friends. I was doing whatever I could do, as a doctor, and now also as part of a team– in fact, an army.
Six months later, COVID-19 numbers were increasing, the economy was stretched out, and our lives were still lying between lockdowns. Yet, I had made remarkable progress in friendship, emotional bonding, and connection beyond my professional boundaries. I have realized that we truly live for each other.
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(This story was prepared for an “Imagine Another World” online storytelling workshop held October 14, 2020.)
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