Question

How has the Covid-19 pandemic affected patient care, the delivering of patient care, and the role of the nurse?

Answer 1

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the world healthcare scenario drastically with several contributions from modern technology solutions. The emerging significance of telemedicine, which came as a relief for many providers, is one of them. For many not-so-serious patients, the first level consultation was through online consultations, which was a time saver for both the patients as well as the physicians. Though many are of the opinion that this is a kind of compromised patient care, it was the need of the hour. It gave them the right solution at the right time and they could avoid all the unpleasant situations in a hospital during a pandemic. This disease caused by COVID-19 or 2019 NCoV, a new CoV virus strain discovered in December 2019, has been a real burden and a hurdle to proper caregiving for the nurses who are the most affected frontline healthcare workers globally. Many of them got infected and many lost their lives in the process of saving other lives. The virus spreads through human to human contact via aerosols and is also found on surfaces touched by or used by the COVID 19 patients. As nurses are associated with delivering care directly in close proximity to patients, they are directly exposed to the virus and have a higher risk of developing the disease than anybody else. Many were overburdened with extended shifts of 12 hours or 24 hours, which had an impact on their physical health. They were affected psychologically as well with jam-packed wards and hallways with patients and dead bodies and the tireless heavy work they had to do regardless of the fear of getting infected. Insufficient PPEs made them suffer more than anybody else while rendering selfless service to the community. A nurse's role as a frontline worker as well as a caregiver was carried out in a commendable manner though many had to make many sacrifices and compromises in delivering care with the highest level of efficiency.