Pandemic: Still on, still on it! By Bernard Valentin |30 December 2022
The old Princess Elizabeth ‘nurses home’ at Hermitage has become new again
Since that fateful day in 2019 when the world collided head-on with the beginning of the Corona Virus Disease (unarguably, the nastiest of all pandemics), three long and arduous years have already waddled by.
In 2022, Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, was still replicating exponentially and still spewing new variants into the atmosphere.
Whilst some members of the local population cussed, prayed or hoped, others frantically clamoured for some kind of reprieve from the restrictive measures. One could hear, brazenly, repeated and desperate desires and pleas for their relaxation.
Surreptitiously, meanwhile, the omicron variant came through with a vengeance and took centre-stage. In a blitz, it wiped away the up-to-then predominant delta variant and occupied the entire Covid landscape. In response, the health ministry briskly introduced more Pfizer-BioNtech vaccines into more arms, young and old, as it battled to gain the upper hand.
But lo and behold, graph after graph, “rolling average” after “rolling average”, news was not too good for a long while.
In the end, after innumerable trials and tribulations for some of the leisure-and-pleasure businesses, the dreaded Covid measures did come down significantly, allowing rallies, two-year victory celebrations, Creole festival and beach parties to take back their places in hearts and minds. Buckinarms Palace, Barrel Discotheque, Music Stadium and the like, clearly became “great again”.
Throughout the country, Covid-era structures and processes slowly but surely got dismantled to make way for a greater air of normality as the recalcitrant pandemic caused fewer deaths and hospital admissions despite its whimsical surges every now and then.
At the presentation of the previous year’s health sector performance report, the health professionals mused about the indisputable regression in some key health indicators. To the dismay of all, life expectancy shrank in 2021 amid a visible increase in suicides and other premature deaths during that year.
To try and mitigate the upward trend in risk factors responsible for the main diseases (or disease-burden, in health jargon), the ministry created a ‘Health in All Policy Network’. ‘My health, my responsibility’, catchy albeit, is slowly morphing into ‘Our health, our responsibility’ as the sector’s clarion call. The new slogan puts emphasis on collective, as well as individual, responsibility for health.
On the modernisation front, two majestic health buildings, to better serve the future, rose higher from the ground in 2022. The old Princess Elizabeth ‘nurses home’ at Hermitage became new again and the new St Mary’s Hospital on La Digue got a location and a name to match its futuristic outlook.
On the addiction front, the division for prevention of substance abuse, treatment and rehabilitation re-introduced the ‘Dry March’ campaign and turned the ex-Mont Royal centre for alcohol abuse management into a ‘Day Hospital’. Behind the scenes the division and the leadership of the Ministry of Health held talks with the Seychelles Cannabis Association, Sifco (Seychelles Interfaith Council) and others to try and responsibly tone down the drum roll on the much over-bloated virtues of cannabis, a plant, (yes a natural produce), which must not, however, be played with willy-nilly.
Elsewhere, the Ministry of Health listened with fastidious attention but measured concern to the calls from some quarters, including some lobbyists and members of the legislature, to make contraceptive pills and injections more easily available to girls aged 16-18, with or without parental consent.
Whilst the Ministry of Health lauded the efforts by the Institute for Early Childhood Development to improve early childhood care and education and by the social services to improve child protection, its own paediatric services astounded all and sundry with a novelty – the graduation ceremony of premature babies.
In that activity, the country saw on display, the extraordinary dedication of parents and caregivers who had given their utmost to save innocent lives. The joy on their faces was heart-warming as the “little treasures” crossed the Rubicon towards a much higher probability of survival.
In the National Assembly the political tussle at the “private notice questions” between the ministry and the opposition continued unabated, interspersed with the ministry’s happier discourse with the more favourable political voices.
For some older health professionals, the end came in 2022 and the final curtain dropped. Those who reached sixty (60) years of age took advantage of the window of opportunity available to them to quit with full benefits, before pension-age rises to sixty-five (65) years. Nonetheless, the adage that when someone is a caregiver, that person will always remain a caregiver continues to be true.
The health service needs all its warriors, young and old, and will be happy to have them back after “the pause”.
2022 was a year worth more than one billion rupees of services rendered, lives saved and frantic efforts invested in earnest to improve the nation’s health. There were hits and misses. Care quality improvement to reach as close as possible to perfection remains a distant cry, a shared aspiration. The public health sector marches on, however, undeterred by its detractors and firm in its belief that a better health service is indeed possible although it may continue to appear impossible, unattainable. So be it ‒ until, our country finally, actually achieves it.
Contributed
