Medicine: a term associated with heroism, but it’s not all glory and valour. After an increase in strikes and reduction in wages, weeks taken for a simple GP appointment and months for a diagnosis, our country’s doctors and nurses’ personal struggles are often overshadowed. While we are constantly blaming the government, health care professionals are still trying to repair the damage caused by Covid. Oh yeah… remember Covid?

It’s been four years since the pandemic. Four years since the world turned upside down. Even after several years, mental health conditions like severe anxiety and depression caused or worsened by Covid still leave scars among our health care workers. However, due to stigmas surrounding mental health conditions, those who are still struggling may not get the help they need. Surveys done by the B.M.A. stated 30% of respondents consistently stated that many had: “psychological problems due to being away from family and friends” and “no methods to relieve stress and feelings of helplessness”. There is no clear answer as to what causes these mental health conditions, but it is evident they existed long before Covid hit the front-line workers. Strenuous effort through medical schools, passing exams even after A levels, high expectations and higher responsibilities that come with saving lives, the stress is only a natural reaction.

Have we, after constant news on death rates and updated statistics, have become detached from the number of deaths and their magnitude? We think of them as figures, simple calculations providing us with information. Have we forgotten to remember that each digit is a life lost? This loss most definitely experienced by health care professionals. The direct impact it would have had on their well-being is not nearly discussed enough as it should be. We hold respect and gratitude for their work ethic but fail to notice that they are not immune to the pressures and vast responsibility. Witnessing hundreds of deaths daily and feeling helpless among the sick patients, it’s only natural to feel lost and overwhelmed. After all, they are just humans.

Dr Govindan Raghuraman was an acting medical director and ICU clinician at Queen Elizabeth Hospital King’s Lynn and recounts that: “witnessing the fear and distress in the (first Covid-19) patient reinforced my resolve to prioritise patient care over self-concern”. His resilience was relentlessly tested as he felt: “compelled to remain strong for his patients and his loved ones”. While constantly guiding his patients he explains a difficult decision he had to make while a part of the MDT (Multi-Disciplinary Team) was the “allocation and the prioritisation of resources and patients”. Essentially deciding the ‘deservingness’ of one’s life for the overall beneficence (a fundamental principle of morals in ethics) of our nation is the uncomfortable reality that health care professionals had to face.

Rationing resources daily; watching loved ones unable to say their final goodbyes, risking their own lives on the front lines for the sake of our own, it is safe to say the N.H.S. fought a battle of its own and it needs a whole lot more recognition.