Perspective of medical graduates from Patan Academy of Health Sciences on the management of COVID-19, during the initial phase of pandemic in Nepal

Perspective of medical graduate on management of COVID-19

Abstract

Introduction: Nepal with a poor health infrastructure and resources when hit by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the health system  and the health workers were not well prepared to handle the crisis.

Method: We conducted a survey during the initial phase of the pandemic (July-October, 2020) to understand the perspective of PAHS medical graduates on the management of COVID-19. A survey questionnaire was prepared in Google form and circulated through official group emails.

Result: Total 80 graduates participated in the survey of which 55(68.8%) were working in the country (36/55 working within the government health system) during the pandemic and 7(8.8%) were enrolled into residency program in the country. Of the participats 66% reported that their health facility was only partially prepared to take care of COVID-19 patients. The local government and the community of their workplace were reported as supportive for the efforts of the pandemic management by 30(37.7%) and 33(41.5%) respondents respectively. The graduates working during the pandemic were involved in various activities like swab collection (8), screening (30), critical care (37), patient education/counseling (41), managing non-COVID-19 patients (47) and administrative work (17).

Conclusion: Inadequate planning of service delivery, finance, risk communication and resources were identified as major lacking nationally while shortage of human resources, logistic and PPE were reported as the major lacking locally by the participating graduates. The fresh PAHS graduates were found to be contributing at their respective workplaces fitting into both the clinical and non-clinical roles during the initial phase of pandemic in Nepal.