A viral YouTube video by Project Bangsa Malaysia which showcases the hidden struggles by healthcare workers has invoked strong emotions from netizens in the country.
While the general sentiment in the YouTube comments section were sympathetic towards the medical frontliners, many couldn’t help but lash out at the Perikatan Nasional (PN) government over their ineptitude at managing the pandemic.
One comment read “ The government has failed Malaysians. PN has hidden the truth from us! We have raised our white flags because the rakyat has given up on this government!”
The video which has amassed more than half a million views in three days features anonymous confessions from alleged healthcare workers in the Klang Valley.
In March, the Ministry of Health released a circular warning all of its staff not to make comments on the Covid-19 situation on social media after several healthcare workers exposed queue jumping for vaccines.
“The fact that they have to make this video anonymously breaks my heart. Whistleblowers should never have to fear job security for exposing the truth” one netizen wrote.
The video sheds light on the severity of the pandemic behind the scenes, touching on everything from lack of medical resources, crippling exhaustion of frontline workers, and questionable policy decisions by the government.
Hubert Lim tweeted out “I actually cried listening to all of them speaking the truth.”
While another user said, “ This is so heartbreaking. You can hear and feel the pain in their voices.”
Some of the more shocking revelations center around the Covid-19 death rates. According to one worker, the death rates announced daily does not reflect the actual deaths which are much higher.
One of the main reasons that deaths are being supposedly under reported is because, anyone with Covid-19 that passes away from a stroke, heart attack or blood clots in certain areas of the body would not be counted in the final death tally.
The alarming staff shortage was also discussed, with many of the hospital personnel suffering from burnout,exhaustion,and depression.
As doctors and nurses continually contracted Covid-19 and were put on quarantine, the rest of the staff would have to work extended hours and days off to replace them.
The frontliners were not only being forced to work in different roles in which they were trained for, they were also taking on far more duties than they are able to physically or mentally handle.
“I hope I don’t kill anyone” said one tearful houseman who revealed that she was unable to attend to all the patients immediately as she was forced to cover several different hospital floors during her shift.
One frontliner clarified that Malaysia that deaths could have been avoided if there was sufficient manpower and equipment to handle the volume of patients.
These hospitals which these frontliners worked in were running out of beds, ICU spaces, ventilators, medication and oxygen tanks.
In one hospital, patients were forced to share one tank between 5 other individuals.
In other situations, intubation could not be performed on deserving patients due to the lack of oxygen available.
The oxygen crisis is so bad that some healthcare workers started fundraising to get more oxygen canisters into the hospital but were “told off” presumably by the hospital management.
Many were also concerned that Covid-19 policies were enacted without the input from the medical community and have actually pushed the healthcare system past its limits.
One of the complaints pointed to the lockdown which the frontliners felt was insufficient to stop the wave of infections.
“We need a proper lockdown, with financial aid and food in their homes, together with testing and vaccination” said one of the frontliners.
Strong testing and vaccination has been a weak point for PN with the opposition pleading with the government to engage the FTTIS (Finding, Testing, Tracing, Isolating and Supporting) system to contain the virus.
The country is quickly reaching the one million mark and have been criticized by Malaysians for being one of the worst performing countries in managing the Covid-19 pandemic.
The anti-government sentiment grew particularly strong after the Sabah state elections caused the third wave of infections to hit the country. At time of publishing, Malaysia has reached it’s highest ever Covid-19 count of 13,125 cases in a day.
Earlier this month, Malaysia plunged to the near bottom of Bloomberg’s Covid resilience ranking, which measures how well a country has been able to bounce back from the deadly pandemic.
As one frontliner put it, “If you think the ship is sailing, it has already sunk