(This video was first published in 2021 in the midst of the second COVID wave in India. FIT is republishing the story in light of National Doctor's Day.)

Producer: Vaishali Sood Camera: Athar Rather, Editor: Prashant Chauhan

"For six weeks, no break. It's been difficult, for everybody, it's been difficult," says Dr Sumit Ray.

He's a critical care specialist and the medical superintendent at Delhi's Holy Family Hospital. The Quint's team stepped into his ICU on 12 May, the day Delhi had less than 12,000 new COVID cases. For the first time in over a brutal six weeks, the emergency room at the usually very busy hospital was nearly empty. Patients wheeled in were getting beds and immediate care.

Those who required ICU beds though, were being triaged to other hospitals nearby.

As waves ebb, the pressure shifts from emergency rooms to the Intensive Care Units. Those who came in weeks ago have taken a turn for the worse, or those who were wheeled in after going from hospital to hospital, already in severe condition, are shifted directly to an ICU.

The Brutal Weeks of the 2nd Wave

"We have 66 patients at the ICU right now. Our bed capacity is 56. There's no place, no slots that are free, no corner to put a trolley in," Dr Ray tells us.

In normal times, the ICU had 48 beds, with 40 patients occupying them. Not all of them were on ventilators. Now it's different. There are patients elsewhere in the hospital who should have been in the ICU, but there's no space. They've converted other high dependency units into critical care setups.

"No one sits. Through the shift, no one sits. They are standing or there is a sudden rush or movement of patients and they are constantly on their toes," says Dr Ray. These shifts stretch beyond the already long hours.

The patients are more serious this time. There has to be a constant vigil. Dr Ray says working in an ICU is an intense job, and the intellectual energy required to make constant decisions is taxing. His nurses and staff are knackered.

Surges will go down, but Dr Ray worries about the mental health impact the pandemic will have on his largely young staff.

Nurse Tenzing is a 10-year veteran at this ICU. We see her helping some distressed patients get in touch with their loved ones via video calls. Some of the family members struggle with technology, as she calmly walks them through it.

There's no meeting hours, the physical touch of a loved one, during a pandemic. It's the staff that is family.

She tells us it's been hectic.

Dr Ray says in terms of percentage, the outcomes for younger patients is more or less the same, but the sheer volumes is overwhelming. "There is always a selection bias in triaging. There's a sick patient who need critical care, a selection bias comes in, a younger patient gets it. There is evidence for it, there are guidelines for it, but it's hard," he tells us.

A patient goes into distress while we wait, and the staff gets on with their job of saving lives.

The hospital's director, Father George, gets emotional when talking about what his medical staff has endured. He says now the oxygen supply and other issues are sorted. But even when things were out of control, his staff did not give up.

There will be time to regroup, to prepare for surges, to look at numbers and examine deaths data, to procure more equipment, but the hospital is acutely aware that trained medical staff will not be easy to come by.