Technology, engineering and innovations- Power buffers in the COVID driveline.....

Abstract

THE GREAT COVID DISASTER The coronavirus disease (COVID)-19 through its first, and second brutal wave, has produced what has been labelled as an 'unprecedented human crisis' that satisfies every criterion of the definition of 'a mass disaster'.[1] It has resulted in great harm, damage, death and has challenged the global health infrastructure. Death, chaos and melancholy have not just only invaded our lives but seem to test our very psyche and attitude towards humanitarian crisis. We anaesthesiologists and intensivists have been a helpless testimony to the faces of dying COVID patients and have witnessed the helplessness of their family and friends. The memories of young COVID patients sinking into the folds of death due to hypoxia will haunt us in the years to come. These memories advocate that COVID-19 is one of the worst global disasters humankind could ever witness. At present, clinically managing the COVID patients and academics at the same time seems like two ends of the real world rather than two sides of a coin. As we write this editorial, we are overpowered by our emotions and have become numb with our bitter clinical experiences. Death and a sense of hopelessness prevail all around us, and yet, we have to write this editorial. The manuscript submissions and resubmissions to our journal, the Indian Journal of Anaesthesia (IJA), continue even in this catastrophic situation. We are proud to say that the present editorial team, reviewers and authors of IJA continue to work with undeterred enthusiasm and vigour even during these troubled times. In spite of the technical challenges and snags of the new website and submission system as well as the COVID barriers, IJA is being regularly published, maintaining the academic vitality among its readers. SETBACK TO THE DISASTER MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS BY THE CHALLENGES OF THE COVID PANDEMIC COVID-19 became a serious pandemic mainly because of a global lack of common awareness, insufficient infrastructure and lack of proper management strategies.[2] Preparedness for disaster management, disaster response and post-disaster measures are important areas of disaster management. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic clearly exhibited lacunae in all these areas with a clear collapse of our fragile health care system. As a country, we were not well prepared to deal with the pandemic, especially the second surge.Our response to the pandemic was impotent and our post-first COVID surge measures and plans were half-hearted and weak. The Disaster Management Ministry and the Union Health Ministry laid down guidelines and ramped up activities for the detection and treatment of COVID victims. State Governments, district administrations and local non-government organisations are working actively day and night to help in the crisis; yet, the 'game of deaths' continues. The desperate scramble of our citizens to get dyspnoeic patients admitted to hospitals;the inability to do so because of lack of oxygen beds; hospitals sending SOS messages for oxygen; weak and breathless patients dying on the stretcher/in auto-rickshaws in front of casualty departments even before being attended to; patients both in corporate hospitals and government-run hospitals dying suddenly because of oxygen shortage;and the mad race for oxygen cylinders speak volumes about our lukewarm preparedness to manage the second COVID wave and our management strategies. We clearly exhibited ourselves as a nation crippled by the agonies of oxygen shortage, vaccine shortage, lack of hospital beds and lack of COVID-essential drugs. Humanity has gone to shameless levels as the hoarding and black marketing of the drugs and life-saving equipment is going unabated. THE SPECIALITY AND ‘ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY’—A STRONG CONTINUUM OF PARTNERSHIP Technology has helped anaesthesiologists in preventing perioperative disasters and helped improve perioperative care. Technological advances have occurred over the last few years focusing on automation, mon