Good morning. How are you? I haven’t posted in a while. I’ve been busy. My son thinks my job description is to “find the germ🦠, squish it up, and put it in the wheelie bin”. Would be easier.
I’m working more, but there are good things. This week, I started seeing (limited, selected cases based on certain criteria) outpatients in person again for the first time in weeks. These patients had all recovered from #Covid19. I have really missed patients. Telemedicine is not been the same! My highlight include the patient who brought me drawings her children made for me (yes, they are on my desk!)
There are lots of hardships still for so many of us – financial, domestic, childcare, work, health, fear/anxieity – but since today is usually the #darknessintolight walk, I’d like to just focus on what light could be at the end of the tunnel today (and I’ll stick to health matters, because that’s what I know):
1. Missing the lice yet? I’d say not! Social distancing means that by this point, any lice have been treated, your child isn’t getting reinfected. Increased social distancing means these creepy crawlies won’t be bothering us for a while. (if your child still has lice at this point after treatment, time to talk to GP!)
2. Outbreaks of chicken pox, mumps, measles, influenza, and whooping cough are also being beaten by #socialdistancing. #vaccineswork and your GP is still doing primary immunisation schedule (2, 4, 6, 12, 13 month jabs) Never a better time to make sure your family is up-to-date on MMR. #Coronavirus has led to improved vaccine awareness and a new,improved community awareness of virus transmission. We can catch up to other countries and take this new opportunity to make these vaccine preventable diseases in Ireland’s past.
3. Telemedicine – We have been slow to adopt it, but #covid19 has forced us to embrace it. I argue that it is NOT a good replacement for doctor-patient encounter, but may have a real role in certain cases for routine questions, touching base, or feeding back routine results to help ease appointments and reduce waiting times.
4. New ways of doing medicine. We’ve thrown out the politics and playbooks to create a pandemic response. It was far from perfect, but it has largely worked with good safety and efficiency. It will be interesting to see what of these new efficient patient pathways and practices might be useful going forward and might lead to better health services.
5. I’d like to think that people are starting to realise that science matters. Facts matter. Spreading conspiracy theories is dangerous and do real harm.
6. #stillthere now and still will be there at the end of the tunnel: If you need help, your GP is still at work. We are still concerned that patients are avoiding seeking necessary medical care for non-covid problems. Many allied health professionals, including registered dietitians and counselors, are still available via telephone or web-based services. Services such as Samaritans, Pieta House, and Women’s Aid are still there. The HSE website and mentalhealthireland.ie have a full list of supports available. If you need help, ask. Please.
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