THE FRONTLINERS-COVID-19 THE ”HEROES”: Queen Elizabeth II praise you Dr Lito Saquilayan. downed by virus, returned to front line: In MEMORIAM: Dr Sally Gatchalian and Dr Leandro Resurreccion, both dead.
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Already 64 years old, the odds were not in his favour. His lungs were scarred, and his kidneys and liver were failing.
His oxygen level had also dipped to a dangerous level.
On March 12, his doctors made preparations to intubate the ophthalmologist, who is also medical director of Rizal Medical Centre, a big state-run hospital east of Manila.
“If they intubate me, then the game is over,” he told The Straits Times.
Already in the intensive care unit, he told his doctors to wait till sunrise.
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In the morning, his oxygen level, precariously low the previous evening, started to rise. The more potent antivirals and antibiotics he got just hours earlier were working.
This week, he is back in the front line to rally his troops, confident that his body has somehow developed immunity to the virus.
“Morale is low,” he said, as the virus continues to spread and stretch the Philippines’ healthcare system to breaking point.
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At least 22 doctors have died of Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, since the country’s first confirmed local case was reported on March 6.
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“Our ratio of dead physicians to all deaths from the virus is now 1 to 7…We are being decimated,” said former health secretary Esperanza Cabral.
Most were exceptional, experienced doctors who were at the top of their fields – Dr Sally Gatchalian was president of the Philippine Paediatric Society and Dr Leandro Resurreccion was a pioneering paediatric transplant surgeon, both dead as a result of the virus.
There were also cardiologists, oncologists, obstetricians and anaesthesiologists who succumbed to the disease.
They died because they were the first to see patients who either did not know they were infected or too terrified to tell the truth.
“Early on, people would come to hospitals with a fever, a cough and colds. They actually had Covid-19, but they did not know it yet.
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“So, the doctors were not prepared. They were not wearing PPEs (personal protective equipment),” said Dr Cabral.
Nurses, nursing aides, technicians and anyone working at a hospital, even accountants, meanwhile, are being shunned and chased out of their apartments and dormitories.
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Worse, they are being assaulted.
A nurse was sprayed with bleach as he was riding his bicycle to work.
An ambulance driver was shot in the hand after he figured in a heated argument with a neighbour over where he should be parking his ambulance.
All this while healthcare workers witness soul-crushing suffering among patients.
A nurse recounted in a Facebook post a patient who had secretions and had already been intubated.
He was tested for the coronavirus a week earlier, but his result was not out yet.
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She said they wanted to suction the man’s secretions, but they could not because that would turn droplets into aerosol, which would make the virus, if he had it, airborne.
“So the patient was left drowning in his own secretions,” the nurse said.
The patient died eventually before his test result was returned – he had tested negative for the coronavirus.
“We could have saved him if we had known that earlier. Instead, he died alone,” the nurse said.
Hospitals are still short on protective gear, sidelining at least a thousand health workers in Manila alone.
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The number of coronavirus cases has surged since President Rodrigo Duterte enforced a sweeping, month-long lockdown over the northern third of the Philippines last month.
From 187 on March 17, there are now 3,764 cases as of April 7.
Just this week, reports were out that 50 out of 83 psychiatrists at the National Centre for Mental Health had been quarantined.
Thirty-four of the hospital’s staff had tested positive for the coronavirus, while over 400 were suspected of having been infected.
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The facility, which also operates as a special training hospital accredited by the Health Ministry, said its PPEs were down to just 100, when it needs at least 250 a day.
In a message that deflated, rather than lifted, the spirits of medical professionals here, Mr Duterte said the doctors who died were “lucky” because they died for their country.
In a stinging rebuke, one doctor said: “Why do you have to let us die when you can prevent it? We will fight, but don’t forsake us.”
Dr Saquilayan said he regrets that he was taken out of the game early on.
“That was very frustrating,” he said.
This week, he is back at his hospital, scared but conscious of the fact that staying away is not the right thing to do.
“I’ll just have to be extra-careful because this is a long battle… I may not be in front of patients as often as I need to be.
“But I have to be there for my front liners because they are the most vulnerable,” he said. – Raul Dancel- Philippines Correspondent
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