Our working schedules are all cramped up and the significant burden of work is such that most of us try to avoid overworking ourselves even more. The local population is estimated to shoot up from 15000 to a 100000 people for the tourist season with no extra doctors. So many protocols and recruiting of doctors and the result is completely opposite to what was intended. No humanitarian health care and no one available to give us a hand. For the first time ever in my life, I was called during the night and I actually didn't hear the phone which rang multiple times. At least it was not a real emergency. I was mortified, but then again, I was tired and it was the first time (and last time) it happened.
Then, a call for respiratory distress came from the old people's residency and I went to check it out. To my surprise, the nurse thanked me for actually coming. It honestly didn't cross my mind any other way to attend a call for respiratory distress. It was the first time I was called to the old people's residency since the lockdown. It was all closed up with no cars in the parking place. I signaled that I arrived through a window and the receptionist told me to go through the back door. Off I went to the back door where she greeted me and took my temperature. I went in and found the nurse and the patient in an isolated room. The nurse thanked me and told me briefly about what they have gone through these months. Family members are still not allowed to come around, although sometimes the old people are taken to the hallway of the garden which has access to the outside world through a fence. There they can see their loved ones there, and they can wave at each other.
The patient looked like she wanted to check out and the will stated that no invasive rescue maneuvers were to be attempted. So I phoned her grandson who had custody over her to inform him that this could or could not be it. That it seemed the patient got better with just touching her hand and forehead while being reassured that it was okay and that it was a pity that he could not be there to do precisely that, and that we were going to see what could be arranged for a possible goodbye without compromising the rules so the staff will not get into trouble. He was practically in tears and then I noticed that grandma recovered her consciousness as I was in the phone with her grandson, and started talking and breathing normally. I approached the phone to her ear, so she could listen to her grandson talk. She looked like in heaven. Just that brief interaction was better than any rescue maneuver I could have done. Her oxygen saturation went to normal, her heart rate normalized, the whole of her normalized. The nurses placed her in a chair at the garden and arrange for the grandson to come to the wall fence. The nurse and the auxiliary nurse were a happy pair unlike I've never seen recently. As I said goodbye, the three of them were smiling. And that was my experience in an old people's residency since the lockdown started. Normal interaction is now surreal.
Then, a call for respiratory distress came from the old people's residency and I went to check it out. To my surprise, the nurse thanked me for actually coming. It honestly didn't cross my mind any other way to attend a call for respiratory distress. It was the first time I was called to the old people's residency since the lockdown. It was all closed up with no cars in the parking place. I signaled that I arrived through a window and the receptionist told me to go through the back door. Off I went to the back door where she greeted me and took my temperature. I went in and found the nurse and the patient in an isolated room. The nurse thanked me and told me briefly about what they have gone through these months. Family members are still not allowed to come around, although sometimes the old people are taken to the hallway of the garden which has access to the outside world through a fence. There they can see their loved ones there, and they can wave at each other.
The patient looked like she wanted to check out and the will stated that no invasive rescue maneuvers were to be attempted. So I phoned her grandson who had custody over her to inform him that this could or could not be it. That it seemed the patient got better with just touching her hand and forehead while being reassured that it was okay and that it was a pity that he could not be there to do precisely that, and that we were going to see what could be arranged for a possible goodbye without compromising the rules so the staff will not get into trouble. He was practically in tears and then I noticed that grandma recovered her consciousness as I was in the phone with her grandson, and started talking and breathing normally. I approached the phone to her ear, so she could listen to her grandson talk. She looked like in heaven. Just that brief interaction was better than any rescue maneuver I could have done. Her oxygen saturation went to normal, her heart rate normalized, the whole of her normalized. The nurses placed her in a chair at the garden and arrange for the grandson to come to the wall fence. The nurse and the auxiliary nurse were a happy pair unlike I've never seen recently. As I said goodbye, the three of them were smiling. And that was my experience in an old people's residency since the lockdown started. Normal interaction is now surreal.
. They could, however, get a man with a bobcat to come out and dig a hole to bury the cow. 
