GP in corona times

In the coming weeks, we will supplement the blog with a number of interviews that journalist Karolien Selhorst had with Dirk van Babylon. Each episode will address a current topic. You can read the third installment today. This time, it’s about domestic violence during the coronavirus pandemic.

GP in corona times

These are strange times. Not least for the family physician who sees his job has changed dramatically.

Peter, what is fundamentally different for you now during this corona crisis?

“I find it extremely frustrating that I am not allowed to touch my patients. After all, as a general practitioner, you have an intimate relationship with them: we can touch people, examine them, see them naked, give them a shot, etc. That physical contact is now falling away and that is disorienting in a way.”

Are you seeing more or fewer patients now than before the corona crisis?

“We’re currently working behind closed doors. This means that 95 percent of my consultations are by phone. I try to guide those seeking help and help them with their symptoms as best as I can. I also help chronic patients who have nothing to do with COVID and are now discovering they can no longer see their GP.”

GPs have to make do with the chronic patients: diabetics, heart patients, but also the addicts I have been following, sometimes for twenty years. Normally we see each other regularly, now we have to talk on the phone. This is not always obvious, but of course we cannot abandon these caregivers.

Unfortunately, the reality is that many of them are now left out in the cold. All sorts of tests and other procedures are now being postponed until August or later, so we’re stuck here. Others are afraid to seek help if their complaint doesn’t fit the coronavirus problem, and that means some things are discovered far too late or missed. So that’s definitely a problem.”

Do you fear that after the corona crisis there will be a flurry of severe diseases?

“There will indeed be patients who were not helped in time or whose treatment has not been updated. I hope the damage will not be too great, but I am not reassured.”

Are there more psychological complaints now?

“People with mental health issues fall completely out of the picture. As a general practitioner, I see a lot of people with mental disorders. I try to listen to and encourage them as much and as attentively as possible. It is especially frustrating that I cannot currently refer people to other caregivers such as psychiatrists and psychologists. They mostly work over the phone, which is an additional barrier for many of my patients. A particularly difficult group are victims of domestic violence. We are totally powerless to deal with that. Families are simply locked up with each other and it is very difficult to intervene as a family doctor. Often it is women and children who have to pay. The question is: where can they go now? In the normal case, we can separate those families temporarily. That is much more difficult now.”

Do you see a different kind of complaints popping up now?

People are more dependent on themselves, and the symptoms that were always there are getting worse. People are forced to stay at home. It’s not easy even in normal times, and certainly not now. For example, I’m treating someone with serious mental health issues, and normally I would refer them to a specialist, a psychiatrist, but that’s just not possible now. These people are left out in the cold, and their symptoms are getting worse. I feel a bit overwhelmed. It’s not my job, but I feel obligated to respond to that and play the role of psychiatrist myself. In practice, I’m completely stuck with some people.

Are you working more or fewer hours now?

“I personally have an easier time because we work with closed doors. During the winter season, I sometimes saw more than fifty people a day, which is way too many. For health reasons I had limited all my hours just beforehand, and I don’t go above it. ”

When do you foresee that you will be able to work normally again?

“I think it will start in June. A lot will, of course, depend on how we get through May. There could be a second peak or something. We don’t know that. However, I hope that care for chronic patients will resume soon.”

 

Written by Karolien Selhorst.

 

 

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