As the doctor tried to gently slide the swab in, the infant started screaming. He tried to turn his head away in reflex – but with his neck muscles not yet developed, he could not do so. He could only cry louder.
For the doctor, it was a heart-wrenching moment.
While infants are helpless, treating the sick ones can also be very stressful for doctors. Add to this the Covid-19 element and the number of cases, and the stress level rises even higher.
A doctor in Penang has detailed the stress she had to go through when attending to young children back-to-back.
In a Facebook post, Dr Vivian Dominique recalled having to conduct an RT-PCR swab test on an infant who was just 10 days old.
On the swab incident, she said: “I tried to be as gentle as I could because babies are so delicate, any overshot or rough movement could hurt them.
“And if the sample is blood-stained, it will be rejected. That means we have to do it all over again, and the baby suffers all over again,” said the paediatrician.
As Dominique inserted the swab into his nose, she recalled the infant screaming away and unable to even turn his head. He was helpless.
Just as he was helpless and unable to protect himself from being kissed by strangers at his own baby shower, she said.
“He couldn’t protect himself from being brought to the malls. He couldn’t protect himself from the virus, he couldn’t say ‘no’,” she said.
The next 20 minutes after taking the swab involved taking blood samples and providing intravenous medication to the infant with a fogged-up face shield – a “tormenting procedure” for both her and the baby, she added.
After stepping out from the isolation room and taking off her personal protective equipment, Dominique was met with more stress: a 15-day-old baby was found positive, and was their first case that had to be sent to a Covid-19 ICU in the state hospital.
“Then I received another phone call from my tagging colleague downstairs. A five-year-old girl had tested positive and we needed to transfer her out as well.”
The health ministry previously revealed that 82,341 infections in the country involved infants and children, with over 30,000 cases in the last week. Of the total, 19,851 cases involved those below the age of five.
Yesterday, health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah urged parents to be proactive in protecting their children from the virus. This was because their developing immune systems made them susceptible to infection and they were not currently eligible for vaccinations.
According to Dominique, the best way to protect children is for adults to protect themselves first with the vaccine.
“Whether it is Pfizer, AstraZeneca or Sinovac, the best vaccine is the vaccine that is currently available to you,” she said, while reminding everyone not to miss their vaccination appointments.
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