Dear Editor in Chief,

I read with great interest the article by Bhattacharya [1].

I would like to discuss about the speciality of ophthalmology—a surgical speciality in this letter with specific reference to the Indian scenario. Ophthalmology is predominantly a day surgery practice which needs constant inflow of patients. The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has robbed us of our daily bread and butter. In a survey done in March, majority of the ophthalmologists in India were not seeing patients during the COVID-19 lockdown with near total cessation of elective surgeries and were unsure about resumption of surgeries after cessation of lockdown [2]. This may be true of almost all surgical specialties where day surgery is the norm. We explored the microcosm of a tertiary eye hospital detailing the impact on different strata of population including patients, their caregivers, hospital staff, consultants, and the management itself [3]. The cost for providing for the extra consumables during the COVID-19 pandemic also stresses us out and stretches our already dwindling resources.

A recent study published showed that COVID-19 would impact on their training or professional work; about a third had difficulty in meeting their living expenses and had some kind of depression, and this was significantly higher in younger ophthalmologists [4].

It is worthwhile exploring with our colleagues in psychological medicine to help us all to steer our ship out of the storm we are now facing. A unified approach from the Medical Council of India or the Ministry of Health would certainly go a long way to assure us of that support.