Your Experience from the Pandemic

We are still hampered by the global pandemic, right from the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020 till the present scenario. We all have been affected by it in countless ways, right from getting contracted by the illness to ourselves to disrupting the entire economy of the nation and leaving the health system quite a vulnerable position. Even this pandemic caused heights of uncertainty and anxiety amongst people about their well-being and their plans. Some people lost their loved ones and even some people have pushed depression which entirely caused an imbalance in our mental health. Everybody has gone through the same feeling of being stuck in a situation and trying to seek an answer for the future as this year has been truly a year of uncertainty. We all realised that we need to carefully assess the essential needs and bifurcate them critically. We all also learnt the art of striking the balance between the utmost priority to the least priority in terms of personal needs and forced us to think and take decisions rationally. As people, we frantically seeking help for their loved ones, who got contracted with the illness and searching for basic medical facilities such as a bed in hospitals and quarantine centres. It led to an acute shortage of beds and medical supplements for the people, as the virus was spreading at a faster rate. Due to the shortage of medical facilities and not being well addressed by the personnel at the medical institutions and quarantine centres, the personnel at the medical centres suggested that the person should be home-quarantined and should consult a family doctor for further medical procedures. Being one of them who were in desperate need of medical attention, I have gone through all of the above-mentioned scenarios and it was very much chaotic in person and ground reality was much different. Personally, when I got to know, I was keeping myself updated through the medium of newspapers and news and I read every possible information which was related to it. A sense of seriousness struck me when I got to know of a video of a person, who was the first person to succumb to the virus infection in the market in Wuhan. Even though I was swamped with planning for Conferences, participating in various academic and personal seminars and events, in addition to that I was teaching the French Language to a group of School and College kids and I decided to take up some extra classes for them so that it will help them to practice for their upcoming exams till the very day, the government announced a complete national lockdown. Within a blink of an eye, everything changed so suddenly that there was absolutely no time and state of mind to analyse and make contingencies for the things which I had planned for the near future. It was quite difficult to adjust from an extreme workaholic environment to a sudden standstill at that moment and eventually get a little bit relaxed in everyday life. As the printing of newspapers was halted, for the time being, the only sources of getting the fresh updates of news were only possible through T. V news Channels, over a while it became depressive and started to channelise negative feeling and thoughts. Over a brief time, I and my family started to get along much better compared to the everyday busy life, that we used to only have some dinner time together at night, the only moment where we would sit together to have food most of the times. Even I started to teach the French language and take classes online. I also started to get back to some long-lost hobbies such as practising the guitar, learning some soft creative skills, reading some novels and started to take care of myself daily as I was quite neglecting my overall health and well-being. Introduction Lockdown in India was announced on 25th March 2020. As of now, we all are aware of this virus that caused the global pandemic is the new strain of the virus which is the descendent of SARS- COV2. This strain of the Coronavirus is particularly new to the knowledge to the humans which was not identified by humans before. Covid- 19 pandemic was the result of the outbreak in the laboratory in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. Mumbai, India's financial capital and home to one of the busiest Indian seaports, airports, and a major manufacturing base, has a population of 23. 598 million people. Mumbai, as the centre of many economic activity, is highly populated, with the majority of its residents living in suffocating conditions. Slum dwellers make up a sizable portion of Mumbai's population. All of these variables contribute to the rapid spread of infectious diseases. During the outbreak of the pandemic, the ports of entry resulted in widespread international exposure. This may have caused a huge increase in COVID-19 pandemic cases, turning Mumbai into an infection hub. Many people were exposed to the virus due to a lack of preparations, limited availability of preventatives such as facial masks, and poor hygiene. Since the start of the pandemic, the city has been a hotspot of COVID-19 infection. However, the Indian government enforced an unprecedented countrywide lockdown in late March, effectively halting practically all human activity. Efforts to contain the pandemic started with scaled-up RT-PCR-based testing. (Lancet Journal) The city could not sufficiently provide for its residents’ public health needs, exposing the already overburdened processes and systems that have plagued urban local bodies, which have been mandated by the Constitution to ensure adequate public health infrastructure and services. The Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) had to rely on private hospitals and set up quarantine facilities in sports centres and open grounds to tackle the outbreak. Mumbai has since created temporary systems to deal with the pandemic. (MANIKAR, 2021) According to the 2014 Urban and Regional Development Plans Formulation and Implementation (URDPFI) Guidelines, DPs should account for the provision of hospitals, health centres, nursing homes, dispensaries, clinics and health posts. The URDPFI also lays down the norms for providing such facilities based on the population size and ease of access. The plans calculate the amenities required by the city population as per the available area, and reserves spaces or create provisions for amenities like health facilities. [1] Methodology This project recounts the stories of persons who were infected with the Covid- 19 virus and their experiences with public health infrastructure, as well as the role of the government's proactiveness in preventing the virus's spread. I used a qualitative research methodology in which I conducted phone interviews with three persons to learn about their thoughts on the function of government agencies and medical institutions. These were unstructured interviews. This project aims to understand the narratives in terms of the social and economic aspects of the pandemic. Thematic Analysis The larger problem in Mumbai is the poor ¬capacity of the public health system. While Mumbai may have adequate number of beds, both public and private medical institutions taken together, the deficits in human ¬resources and supplies and very low budgetary allocations for healthcare are major concerns and limit the public healthcare system’s response to the COVID-19 onslaught. (Duggal, 2020) Until 1991, the expenditure on health by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) was between 25% and 30% of its budget. At present, it is down to 10% to 12% of its budget (Duggal 2016). The poor capacity of the BMC health infrastructure to deal with normal healthcare issues, let alone a public health crisis. More alarmingly, routine healthcare in both outpatient departments (OPDs) and hospitalisations are also adversely affected and many cases of denial of access are reported in the media every day. The private health sector response is inadequate—most general practice clinics are closed and nursing homes and hospitals if open are unwilling to take any risk and are rejecting patients, especially the poor. The middle classes and the rich do have some access to private healthcare facilities but there have been frequent reports of exorbitant charges by private hospitals. There has been some discussion and debate of the state taking over the larger private hospitals, especially those registered as charitable trusts, but the political class and decision-makers in the government have not shown the courage to act accordingly. This is an emergency, and, in the interest of the public, the state has a constitutional right to take over private healthcare ¬facilities and call upon private doctors to engage in public service. The state and the BMC have failed to do so. (Duggal, 2020) Sailee, a 24-year-old, Law professional working in a corporate law firm in South Bombay, narrates down her experience as “There were no beds available at all and we left no stone unturned as my entire family was diagnosed Covid-19 positive until we found some slot in one of the private hospitals. ” As the doctors at the private hospitals were not that cooperative, they could not get the utmost care even though one of their family members is a doctor by profession herself. She emphasis on “The doctors were not treated well in terms of their well-being and their stipend. ” Regarding the health infrastructure, she adds “ The State Government were not able to manage the facilities efficiently at all, some quarantine and medical institutes did not even have some basic health and sanitation facilities” When asking about the 2nd surge of Covid-19 pandemic surge, “People were just not bothered about the severity of the situation, they were roaming mask-less and not following the social distancing guidelines at all, this is because the standard of procedures was not clear and there was a lack of strict measures against those who were flouting the norms put out by the government. ” She adds. Rohan, a 27-year-old, Finance professional, working in a finance firm in the Suburbs of Mumbai. Narrates his experiences as “My company took preventive measures two weeks prior when the lockdown was announced, they gave us the flexibility to work from home and also arranged for some vaccine facilities for its employees since it had some tie-ups with covid care centres. ” The initial phase of the lockdown was executed chaotically as the people were trying to get some essential goods and things, the police authorities were not treating people well at all. He further adds “The awareness of basic sanitation such as hand washing and masking should have been done way before, the authorities failed to promote hygiene drives amongst people” Further down he talks about the health infrastructure in Mumbai, “The municipal corporation although was on high alert but could not do their task efficiently which led to some peaks in cases especially in the second surge of the pandemic. ” “Health systems were extremely underprepared due to the lack of SOPs and staff members such as doctors, nurses, etc” he adds. He narrates down the digitalized vaccination registration “CO-WIN application was malfunctioning as there were many technical glitches and the process was too cumbersome to get a particular slot” Lastly, “Private organisations and entities should have stepped in to make a collaborative effort in tackling the pandemic together. ” He concludes. Neerad, a journalist by profession, based in Mumbai narrates down his experiences as “The failure to tackle the pandemic was mainly because of administration tasks, the health care authorities were not able to provide basic facilities and a care such as availability of extra beds in the hospitals and quarantine centres, there was an acute shortage of oxygen cylinders for the patients who were critical. ” He critically analyses “The role of government should have been more vision-based or foresighted so that they could have pre-booked vaccines for own residents which would have given a sense of social security”. He criticizes, the role of administration health care authorities as “the vaccination policy should have been more well planned and robust, on top of that the testing pace was quite slow to detect the people who were affected by the infection”. He further adds, “The main question of this cascade of failures by the government authorities were due to the question of accountability and responsibility”. Talking about the digitalisation of CO-win registration “What about those people who do not have internet or smartphone facilities at their place, how are they going to manage and what is the action plan for those who are not technically literate at all” he concludes. Conclusion As I have interviewed and tried to understand the narrations and experiences by three individuals Sailee, Rohan and Neerad were affected quite heavily in terms of Social and economic dimension further down affected as they have seen and had first hand experienced it, it was quite traumatising. The public health authorities in Mumbai were tested to their limits and criticized for failing to provide basic health care services to its residents. We need more medical staffs and professionals to cater to the needs of well-being of people. There is an urgent need to set up more public and private hospitals, medical camps, as well as to educate people, we need to establish more medical colleges and institutions. A transparent transaction between the health professions and the core authorities should take places such as medical cover/insurance, extra stipends, food and shelter. A stricter protocol should be formed for those people who are flouting the norms of the pandemic guidelines. Another problem was that the lack of awareness regarding the basic sanitation facility or activities such as washing your hands, putting on a mask while going out, etc In terms, policy formulations and implementations, we need more educated officials especially those in the health industry so that we can have a robust and smooth process of conducting the procedures. Even though in some modern partially smart cities like Mumbai, the elderly particularly is not well versed with technology as the Covid vaccination registration drive was mainly functioning online. Awareness camps or the youth should take up this opportunity to help the elderly out in such situations. Epilogue One of the major troughs which I faced was that over a while, the perspectives and experiences were becoming repetitive even though everybody has gone through the same series of events that happened to almost everybody, they did have their different views if we look at it through different dimensions. At first, there were some moments wherein the participants in the interview process were not able to articulate their entire experience in one go. Some of them even lost their loved ones to the illness which was hard to come out of, it was a little tricky to convince them to tell this part of their experience. Another viewpoint is that I wanted to get in touch with someone who is working with governmental health authorities and to understand their part while dealing with this situation such as were they getting proper instructions or any guidelines to follow, etc. to tackle the health crisis.