My name is Dr Ahmed Ajine. I'm a General Practitioner in Dublin.
I always wanted to be a Doctor maybe since I was 5 or 6
I remember having the stethoscope on my neck
I have it in my blood to help people
And I find medicine is a very interesting career
And a great satisfaction when you cure a disease or cure problems
Although God is the curer I believe
I only treat people, I don't cure people
And I still enjoy it. I'm coming to 54 now
I enjoy every minute of it. I really enjoy it
I enjoy farming and I enjoy agriculture.
We have a greenhouse
about 56 ft x 40 ft
a plastic tunnel
And we have a small
this size for he-
what do you call it?
pigeons and hens
That's my hobby after medicine
Since the crisis
I have been very badly impacted
regarding my own surgery with the staff
I had to let them go work from home
My day has dramatically changed
now
em
I'm not seeing as many patients as I should be
I'm dealing with phone calls
90 percent of the consultations are through phone calls
The worry with the consultation, when you have about 40 or 50 phone calls
is that
you have to filter
which is important, which is not important
I do see other patients who are non-respiratory into my surgery
but by appointment only
I end up seeing 2 to 3 per day
before that we were seeing 40-50 per day
maybe 50-60 percent of my income has been affected
My relationship with my family has to be changed
And I do feel lonely sometimes
because of the fact that I'm constantly watching the emails
checking up online
up to date, up to date
and even my own GP studies group
we don't see eachother now, it's only on WhatsApp group
It is affected, I can't detach from it
Certainly mental health goes hand in hand with any crisis
Whether it's infectious pandemics
Or if it's economic crisis
Or whatever
recession
So you're talking about
relapses of severe anxiety disorders
generalised anxiety disorders
then you have the panic attacks
you have relapses of depression
coping problems
I find the anxiety
is when we are telling the people to stay at home
and that's the danger
when people are anxious and staying at home
the two do not go hand in hand
Well
My advice would be, as a medic
listen to the HSE guidelines
Listen to the news, maybe once or twice a day
and keep yourself busy
by going for a walk
keeping the distance as much as you can
talk to friends, take up new hobbies
If you're stressed out,
do get some help from CBT online
Remain positive
because we will overcome this problem
without a doubt
and we have to remain optimistic
It is a virus
We still don't know everything about this virus
We will contain it
The guidelines are telling us now, we are going to level off
so, it's eh
I am optimistic that we will find a solution
Whether it's a vaccination
whether it's a tablet
it does not matter
but once we contain it
I think we will be looking to approach medicine in a different way
Again, in Ireland, I don't think this lockdown has ever been in the history of lockdown
We'll learn a lot from it
I think the aftermath of this, we will come out a bit scarred
but we will be happier that we did the best as a nation
to contain it and to deal with it moving forward.