Overworked, yet enjoying the challenge, says young medical officer

Gaurav Kanthwal

Tribune News Service

Panchkula, May 17

Surajpur Primary Health Centre Medical Officer Snigdha Bansal and her team of health workers is a group of overworked professionals these days, nevertheless they are enjoying the challenge. The entire village and surrounding areas cannot thank these health workers enough for stopping the outbreak of Covid-19 in its tracks.

These Covid warriors are on a constant guard even today and are making sure that the virus does not spread.

After the Tablighi Jamaat incident, this village in Pinjore tehsil of Panchkula district, was divided in four containment zones and there were 50 suspected Covid cases, which had to identified, isolated and quarantined the same day.

“We had instructions to quarantine them immediately. We counselled them and were able to persuade them for quarantine with the help of local support,” said the officer, a gold medallist in MD (Pathology).

The task was difficult considering that Snigdha had joined as the medical officer here a month ago and was the lone medical officer at the centre.

“We had instructions to administer three doses of HCQ in some of the cases. I was new in the area and it became a challenge as people were reluctant to break their fast in the month of Ramzan. With my medical team and local support, we were able to get their full cooperation,” she said.

Immediately after joining here, the 36-year-old doctor had got down to work by screening the Amravati area as it had a lot of foreign-returned people. As many as 15-20 houses were quarantined and a daily monitoring of these people had to be done.

“Ultimately, we screened each and every house of the area. We have conducted two rounds and now, random sampling of high-risk groups is being done. Operating a mobile medical unit is also an ongoing exercise,” she said.

Bansal, accredited social health activists (ASHAs) and other health workers of the area are a shining example of how local support can be galvanised for the betterment of community health. Bansal said counselling people in villages became very crucial as the flow of information was slow here and people had to be dealt with sympathetically.

“In the coming years, the role of ASHA and other health workers will be more prominent. They are dedicated and very effective in counselling villagers,” she observed.