I Would Suggest A Lockdown On Media: Dr Santosh Chaturvedi, Head, Department of Mental Health Education, NIMHANS

Experts have warned that even though there’s a dip in the curve of the spread of the COVID-19, a country like India needs to adapt to several changes to come out of the pandemic. The change can only be achieved by the advancement of scalable solutions, especially in the health and well-being sectors. To discuss on the same lines, IIM Amritsar organized a panel discussion with few oracles who shared their views on "Life Beyond COVID-19: Institutionalizing the New Normal in Health and Well-being" in association with the Govt. of Punjab and IIM Amritsar. The event was moderated by Prof Vartika Dutta, Chairperson, Executive Education, IIM Amritsar. Prof Nagarajan Ramamoorthy, Director, IIM Amritsar opened the session by welcoming the esteemed panellists.  

Vini Mahajan, Chief Secretary, State of Punjab, shared her opening comments. “This is the new normal where instead of meeting a person, we are meeting them through video calls. Let’s look at the silver linings. In March, and in Punjab, the pandemic was an unknown creature and in Punjab, we were convinced that to fight this, we need to shut down. We are struggling with a lot of economic distress, which is leading to physical distress for the government”, she stated. Punjab did succeed in reducing the pandemic’s impact on its people and that is why Punjab is amongst the lowest in terms of the COVID-19 cases. The range of measures needed is covered from the public health response to social media messages which are absolutely bizarre, to more genuine apprehensions.  

Dr Krishna M Ella, Chairman and Managing Director, Bharat Biotech, shared his thoughts on the saying ‘as long as there is no vaccine, there’s no cure’, and what stage of development are we standing today. “Indian vaccine manufactures are better than any other vaccine fields of the world.” Most of the vaccine strength as come from the powerful private sectors. “If India cannot manufacture a vaccine, no other country can manufacture.” He provided several data, strategies, and examples to prove that India is getting significantly good results in the process of manufacturing the vaccine. By the end of the year, the vaccine will be ready and by next year, it will be supplied. But the manufacturing and supply of the needles through which the vaccine will be provided will be way more challenging. “Manufacturing will be the key in this game”, he concluded. 

Dr William Bhatti, Director, CMC & Hospital Ludhiana, it affects people of different blood types different, and there are different protocols that are being provided as well. With such unprecedented changes, how are the hospitals gearing up? “Remember one thing, all of us are provided with a lot of knowledge, and that is aggravating the problems. The masses, including the healthcare workers, lack proper education and information. The mutation is a normal cycle of the virus. Coronavirus was existing, but the novel coronavirus is just more dangerous.” The healthcare industry has been formulating our guidelines, and we are only improving the protection of ourselves and the patients. The information asymmetry is causing a lot of anxiety and creating a lot of pressure on the hospital administrators, and the workers. 

Dr Santosh Chaturvedi, Head, Department of Mental Health Education, NIMHANS, spoke about the psychological trauma that the healthcare workers are themselves going through. “There are different type of problems and they are arising from health anxiety and different types of stigmas. There are different levels of healthcare workers who are coping it in a different way. May clinical workers are taking this up in their stride.” He further added, “I would suggest a lockdown on media”. Dr Chaturvedi concluded saying that the only cure for misinformation, is the spread of the correct information.  

Dr Rakesh K Chadda, Professor & Head Department of Psychiatry, AIIMS New Delhi, shared his valuable thoughts about the psychosocial support for the patients who are tested Corona positive. Dr Chadda said, “We have to educate the person who is tested positive, and the family about the virus and the symptoms. Most people recover and only 2-5% of people have a complicated physical illness. For the family, we have to provide special information on social distancing and other important precautions.” The fatality news reaches the mass more than the recoveries, and that automatically creates a lot of anxieties. He concluded saying, “Most of the anxieties can be dealt with psychosocial support, and do not need medications”.