Dr. Rafat Latif

Dr. Rafat Latif is the chief consultant in critical care. ICU stuff. He has his MBBS and a DTCD. That means he studied chest diseases first. Makes sense I guess. The ICU is basically just managing lungs and ventilators anyway. The room is always freezing. No windows. You never really know if it is day or night in there. Just bright fluorescent lights. He probably wears those blue plastic shoe covers over his sandals. Walking between the beds. The monitors are always beeping. Different pitches for different alarms. He just ignores most of them. Knows which ones actually matter.

He looks at the ventilator screens. Just graphs moving across. Green and yellow waves. He adjusts the oxygen dials. Maybe changes the PEEP pressure. Just pushing buttons on a touch screen. The patients are all asleep. Tubes in their mouths. Thick tape holding them down. He does not really talk to them. They cannot hear him anyway. He talks to the duty doctors. Tells them to check the arterial blood gases. ABG. Just a small printout that shows oxygen levels. He reads the numbers. Sort of rubs his eyes. Probably tired.

Families wait outside the double doors. Sitting on the floor sometimes. He goes out there once a day. Tells them the blood pressure is stable. Or the kidneys are failing. No long explanations. Just the numbers. They ask if the patient will survive. He says maybe. Depends on the infection. He goes back inside. The heavy doors close. He washes his hands with that pink liquid soap. Dries them. Looks at the next monitor.