Disease X

It’s been a rough month since the surge in cases from my locality. There are a hundred patients on the waiting list and every single one qualifies for hospital treatment because they need it the most. But there’s not enough beds or manpower to support them. Behold my wall of texts.

In the lens of privilege, I can understand why not being in a situation where you see human suffering can make you say stupid shit. While working on the ground where any potential person I meet on the emergency room can get me infected, I’d have to treat everyone with the best that I can be to alleviate some suffering and even the way to deliver bad news well is the greatest blessing I could provide because there’s nothing else.

Whenever I hear or see people type in conspiracy stories about plandemic, making comments that none of this is real and it’s just big pharma making money out of people, there’s a part of me that wants to be understanding enough that people can only process what they want to know or capable of knowing. And given with a different set of cards in life, they may have gone a different route or something along those lines. But then there’s also a part where I just mentally curse in my mind where at my most raw emotions boiling, I wish some people suffer in their final moments for making everyone else living still miserable.

Let’s just say if disease X was just a normal flu, would you still be willing to put sick workers along with immunocompromised patients under one room? Even if it’s a normal flu, you don’t put sick workers to work so you just have to make do with being understaffed. I’m looking at this in the lens of disease X and its controversies are off and it’s really just an overhyped mass hysteria like some people claim it to be. It's not about who is right anymore and if people are more concerned having the right to say I told you so, then those are more questionable characters in my book. It still doesn’t fit to provide comfort why the health care system is overwhelmed.

It’s been a rough month and the stories that make me lose faith in humanity keep piling up. I wonder how some unvaccinated folks and naysayers to the existence of disease X feel a bit entitled with the best care possible when those that took the disease X seriously have to wait in line and hope they don’t die waiting for a spot in the hospital bed. I hear their stories how they may have caught the kung flu, some went to parties despite lockdowns, some didn’t believe and went on their business, some had no choice but to do business because that’s what put food on the table.

It’s been a rough month and I get to hear the less fortunate and the rich say their aches. Majority of the people that are getting sick are those that can’t afford to be sick. They needed to work to survive. They needed to get out because that’s what keeps their landlord not kick them out, keep them from being hungry, and still have some semblance to have human dignity. Some rich folks, do come to the emergency room for real emergencies of course but most just have it easy with aches and pains managed as an out-patient basis.

When you deal with indigent people and their diseases, it’s not only an organ system you have to mind, there’s public health insurance, tailoring your management to what they can realistically afford and maybe some prayers that some philanthropist started handing down freebies to keep them alive. A middle class in a third world is just one hospital admission away to be ranked down to poverty levels.

It’s been a rough month and I have to keep it together when people look at me straight in the eye like all hell they experience right now is something I can control and I refuse to do anything about it. They come in the emergency room hoping for the ideal care provided but are horrified when they are told they have to wait for an indefinite period before getting seen by a physician. Nevermind the fact that an entire department got three fourths of its specialized work force on quarantine or how it is possible that a hospital can still run when only two residents going on duty 24 hours and from duty 8 hours (the next day) can still keep running.

The fact that every hospital is undermanned doesn’t make patients and their folks any less empathetic about the situation. When your significant other is in their serious life threatening condition, the vision can get narrowed and all basic courtesy goes out the window for trying to comfort that single person. Dear me, here I am thinking of the next nice thing to say to try and reduce the tension in the emergency room and be functional at my job but all that lady with a tummy ache can utter is how incompetent I am at my job.

I’m sorry if you thought you were going to die from a hangover in exchange for that best night out of your life. I was more concerned about the patient I had to turn down and advised to seek another institution for that lady’s place. By the way, the patient I turned down was having a heart attack and I’m sure a lot could be done if the lady who didn’t obeyed the no social gatherings until further notice wasn’t there.

Did you say you that head injury came from a drunk driving event? There’s around a hundred patients waiting to get a bed waiting but you want to get treatment first cause it hurts? A fair point but why do I find myself not empathetic enough.

If a patient came to you asking for help and you damn well know just by looking that they need it the most, what’s the best way to say no? even after they told you they were turned down by few other institutions and the only options left were hospitals they will go into extreme debt once they’re in?

The situation I’m in is an institution that has max capacity and even when you’re rich there’s just no room left for you. This is where your money can’t save you scenario because everything is packed due to the surge of disease X cases + the usual cases the flood the hospital on a daily basis.
Whether you’re team jab believe or devil may jab, I couldn’t care. Disease X, whether it’s real or a figment of mass hysteria isn’t going to explain why the flu suddenly increased the morbidity and mortality rate at the ground.

The pandemic made medical experts of everyone with Google MD. How is it that the most opinionated about disease X tend to be those not in the health care profession, isn’t in active service in the hospital or on the same field of research, stays often at the comforts of their home or self-isolation, has plenty of time to do their internet journalism, and engage in social media debates that start their statements with ‘I feel’ instead of ‘I think’.

Remove disease X from the picture and we still got a serious flu that magically makes existing disease in a susceptible population have it worse. For an entire year being in the lab, I was pulled out just to man the emergency room because everyone else went sick and we are understaffed. You wouldn’t believe the shit I had to deal with on a daily basis.

If your days are filled with seeing human suffering sporadically, you’d have a strong opinion that the ideal way to care should be implemented and you’ll make a fair point. But when you’re used to seeing suboptimal health care implement due to factors beyond your control and are in a system where you see human suffering on a daily basis, your perspective changes.

I have seen the nicest people I know turn into devils from these working environments and I know it’s the work and not them. Let me tell you how much being exposed in the emergency room at these times changed my manner of speaking, it’s been on extremes, nice friendly tone to raising my voice at the slightest mistake projected on a different person for a different situation at an unrelated time. Then once you get some time to cool your head and reflect on what you’ve done, this isn’t really you but you’re in a situation where the worst in you comes out and it’s nasty.

If you can turn down people who are in need of help (dying, going into a state where they are close to dying, conditions that screams they need urgent treatment) once every hour as a minimum because there aren’t any beds left or people to take care of them, you’re qualified for the job. This isn’t a job for the weak heart and those emotionally sensitive to human suffering. You’re going to see plenty of human suffering you have no power do anything within a span of 8 hours.

It does require empathy but at the end of the day, if you take in every patient that comes for your help, you’re going to spread yourself thin and make mistakes which isn’t doing what it due for the rest of the people already admitted.

For every patient I had to explain why they can’t get help, I mentally curse at the people who took their health for granted.

If you made it this far reading, thank you for your time.