Life, for this Junior Resident in the Infectious Diseases Department at AIIMS , a premier medical collage and hospital in New Delhi, isn’t the same since March 2020. Months in Covid care wards and daily struggle to treat patients with a disease which the world knew very little about, Dr Sayan Maharatna (26), feels situations like Covid make medical professionals feel helpless at times. ``It has changed our journey as medical professionals, how as day and nights passed we learnt new things every moment. We as interns were dealing with a virus, initially none of us had any idea about,’’ he said.

``When China and Western countries were reporting cases, we were not sure whether covid will actually be a big problem for us. For me it was the day I saw an X Ray of a very critical patient I realised what it really was and what it can do to the lungs’’, he said
Dr Maharatna says the first month in ICU was supportive management, he however says the medicos are treating patients more confidently. ``It wasn’t easy, initially our confidence was zero. There was unpredictability of the disease, frustration of not having drugs of choice the patient load was high, besides being wrapped up in PPE kits in the summer heat was not easy,’’ he added.
It was an emotional roller coaster for the young medico. Everytime I looked at patients with Acute Respiratory Disease Syndrome (ARDS), I thought of my parents. For the first time I thought now they are living in a small town Purulia in West Bengal with very few medical facilities,’’ .

Dr Maharatna visited home after many months in October but more than meeting his patients he wanted to see how the migrant labourers who left cities after Covid lockdown , managed to keep the disease at bay in villages.``In villages, primary schools, public places were turned into quarantine centres. People even isolated on trees. The real covid warriors were the ASHA workers (the village health workers). They did a commendable job with their limited resources,’’ he added.