#BTColumn – Millennial Doctors: Dr Nita A. Manu

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by this author are their own and do not represent the official position of the Barbados Today Inc.

by Jade Gibbons

“I am a thirty-four year old Obstetrician/Gynaecologist from Ghana. I have been practising medicine for 10 years and have a Master’s in Public Health. I live with my husband and two children in the capital Accra. I’m an optimist and a realist.

I’m more about pragmatic issues. I believe in the practical aspect of things. And then as much as I believe in those things, I like to see the positive side of issues as well.

I see the world as how you make it. Inasmuch as there are external factors that can happen, you can control the part of the world you are at, in a way.

“My saddest memory, I had this woman. She had high blood pressure and it had an effect on her kidneys as well. So she was referred from one of the peripheral hospitals to ours.

And then, because she wasn’t too stable, we decided to deliver her baby via Caesarean section. We did that and then took the baby to the NICU. Because the mother was not so well, we had to keep her intubated and put her on the ventilator.

We took her to the ICU. And she seemed a little bit stable. But I was called a few hours later only to find out that she had passed because the electricity had gone off.

That really hit me because I thought she was going to make it. But because the electricity went off and the standby generator wasn’t fast enough, by the time the electricity came back on she had gone brain dead.

“During the first lockdown in Ghana, I was working. At that time I was working in Cape Coast. So I would travel from Accra across regions to Cape Coast. I had to show my ID card and then the police would let me pass across the region from Accra to Central Region.

At that time, my son was very young. I think he was about five months, or six months or so. I would travel with him and my sister because they really needed health workers. I had no choice but to go to work. At some point in time, a colleague of ours got COVID-19 from a patient.

And I had seen the patient as well. I hadn’t touched the patient. I had been standing in the room of the patient while we were discussing the patient. At that time, they couldn’t get the test results so fast. It could take a couple of days before the results would come. And afterwards the patient results came and it was positive. It was kind of scary.

I was really sad because I was afraid I would get COVID-19. We all had to go get ourselves tested. From the time I got tested to the time the result came out I was really sad because I was praying that I wouldn’t have it. But luckily when the results came, I was negative.

“We had to divide ourselves into teams when the pandemic hit. We had to divide ourselves into three teams so that at every point in time there were at least two teams that were at home should the first team get affected by COVID-19.

We stopped out-patient department. We stopped surgeries. We were seeing only emergencies. And then since I’m an obstetrician, we were seeing the pregnant women as well. We couldn’t let them stay in the house.

We had to get a database of the pregnant women. Those that had normal pregnancies, we spoke to them on the phone. And we’d ask them to do a few tests and then give us the results. But the higher risk cases, we had to see them in person.

We had to change our consulting room to two doctors per room with two patients. Initially, it was about four doctors per room with four patients, at the same time, spaced out.

And at our Emergencies, we had to take some of the beds out to make space for other patients as well. We had to open up the wards and patients were restricted to only one relative to visit, no more. There were a lot more changes in my workplace now that I think about it.

“COVID-19 has taught me that there’s always a different way of going about something. Initially, we always use to think once you are a pregnant woman you have to come to the hospital for check-ups all the time.

But now we realised you still can ‘see’ a pregnant woman using telemedicine without having to see the person physically. Especially if it is a normal pregnancy. But prior to COVID-19, it wasn’t there.

So I just realised there’s always a different way of going about something. Mentally, it’s a lot more stressful now. You can’t just get up from the house and decide to go anywhere. Before, you could get up and go anywhere.

Be it a restaurant. Be it a salon or the beach. Now everywhere you want to go you have to calculate how many people do you think are going to be there?

How safe do you think the place is going to be? Is it really worth going out in the first place? It’s kind of stressful. New things, I have started a show called ‘Time with Dr. Nita’.

It provides quality healthcare advice on childbirth, obstetrics, and gynaecology. Persons can watch it on YouTube or Instagram.

Jade Gibbons is an arts and business graduate with a keen interest in social issues and film-making. See https://www.jadegibbons246.com