Chennai: Bollywood top star Amitabh Bachchan, who is undergoing treatment for Covid-19 at a hospital in Mumbai, has written in detail about the mental health struggles coronaivrus patients face under isolation in order to curb the spread of the pandemic.
Amitabh, his son Abhishek Bachchan, daughter-in-law Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and granddaughter Aradhya were admitted to the isolation ward of Nanavati Hospital recently after they tested positive for the virus.
In his blog post, Amitabh said the mental condition brought upon by the disease takes a toll on the patient as one is kept away from human contact.
“The mental state sparks from the stark reality that the COVID patient, put in hospitalised isolation, never gets to see another human for weeks. There are the nurses and the doctors on visit and medicine care but they ever appear in PPE units,” he said.
According to Amitabh, one doesn’t get to know the faces behind the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) as the healthcare workers take extreme precautions and deliver what is prescribed and leave.
“Leave because longer stay has the fear of contamination. The doctor under whose guidance the care and mapping and reports are governed by, never ever comes near you to give a hand of assurance, a personal detail of the treatment in the close proximity of an assurance,” he added.
The communication is virtual which is the best way under the current situation, but is still impersonal, he said.
He said the stigma of having been Covid-19 positive is something which a patient may wrestle with once the institutional isolation is over.
“Does it have an effect psychologically mentally? Psychologists say it does. Patients after release are tempered, they are given to consultation with professional mind talkers”.
“They are afraid to be in public for fear or apprehension of being treated differently, treated as one that has carried the disease, a pariah syndrome. Driving them into deeper depression and in the loneliness that they have just come out of,” he stated.