“I received a call at 5.45 am. The nurse said my wife wanted to speak with me. The timing and the nurse’s voice told me that it was probably the last time my wife wanted to speak to me. My hands trembled as I waited to hear her voice while the nurse put the phone on the speaker. I could barely hear to her voice, leave alone make sense of her words; I only heard some wheezing sounds and muffled words. The nurse spoke up and told me that she has said “Take care of yourself” and that was it. My wife, 68-year-old mother to our one son, lost the battle to coronavirus in May 2020,” said Randhir.
What Randhir regrets the most is that he did he even get to meet his wife one last time, hold her hand, stroke her forehead or even tell her that he loved her. She passed away while he was kilometers away from her--she in the hospital, he at their home that they have built together in the past 46 years. In COVID‐19 conditions, the protocol demands the family members to stay away from the IPD patient and hence the family members are unable to be with their loved ones as they suffer or pass away alone. Not being able to comfort or care for the family member, while they take their last breath, can dramatically increase the feelings of grief, distress, and guilt.
Randhir was later told that he needs to come and take the deceased’s body before 6:15 as per the norms in order to avoid transmission after her death. “I reached the hospital in the next 15 minutes where the staff counselled me on how to perform the last rites safely. I was given a PPE set but was n’t allowed to touch the dead body of his wife. Everything happened so fast, I didn’t even get a proper glance at her before she was cremated,” he said. Her cremation was also a very quiet affair with just 2-3 neighbours and a priest, not something that Randhir had imagined would be. “She was the most social person and must have atleast hundreds of friends. She was a regular at kitty parties, restaurants, exhibitions and stuff and now to go away so quietly without giving even her friends an opportunity to say goodbye, it breaks my heart even more,” he adds.
Death of a loved one is the hardest wound to heal. Thus a proper ritual makes a difference where touch, hugging, people coming round, acknowledging and sharing their grief gives the caregivers a natural order of saying goodbye to loved ones. But this is not possible due to infectious disease pandemic as the family is not even given enough time to bereave the dead or sometimes even allowed to see the dead body of their loved one.
Unlike Randhir, there are many families that don’t come to take the body because of the fear of infection. These are tough times for the healthcare workers even, as they become solely responsible for giving the dead body a respectful cremation. Just like the family members, healthcare professionals too do not get enough time to bereave over the death of someone they’ve intensely cared for. Although most people ultimately adjust to the loss, some bereaved individuals disable mourning and suffer from physical and psychological effects like depression, post‐traumatic stress disorder, and complicated grief for longer durations.
The risk factors of the traumatic or sudden loss during public health emergencies also leads to low self‐esteem issues, rise in the previous mental health problems and can make the family/spouse of the deceased believe that they don’t have enough support, people don’t care about them, or that they have been left alone--thoughts that make deep incisions into the psychology and can take years to heal.
A few things that might help while bereaving during COVID19 deaths are; allowing yourself to process the grief, trying to stay in touch with the people who matter most and share similar feelings through voice/video calls or emails, lowering the intake of news and social media posts, keeping a routine to distract yourself into doing something productive, self-care and managing your health and sleeping patterns, understanding your triggers and acting on them. In some cases, these techniques do not help, hence if you or your loved one is facing acute grief due to COVID condition and death of someone close, psychotherapy for their mental health care is of utmost importance. Online or teletherapy is something that will help them cope up with the grief effectively followed by apt medication and follow-ups.