Doctors are on the front line facing the coronavirus. Every evening, at 8 p.m., many people wish to pay tribute to them by their windows or on the balcony. An unprecedented experience for these everyday heroes faced with a virus which is infecting the whole world and of which we know very little.
Absym (the Belgian association of medical unions) had the idea of collecting testimonies, feelings and feedback on an experience that has not yet been completed. For two weeks, video testimonies from these doctors will be shared.
Emergency physician Soheil Zahir is the first to deliver. Angry and at the same time ready to act, he himself contracted the disease.
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Anger at “immobility in Belgium”
This is the first thing the doctor delivers. His feeling of anger at the “immobility” of the country when the first cases appeared in China. “It’s a bit like the people we send to the minefields. They don’t know where to walk and eventually they jump on the mines.”
But, very quickly, the doctor also wishes to emphasize “the surge of solidarity in hospitals”.
►►► Find our whole file on the coronavirus
And then, if the anger is there, it was necessary to put it aside and leave room for action. It’s also about being on the front line.
Especially since the virus leaves them no respite. He is voracious and quick. “In a short time, in two or three days all the intensive care beds were filled and the patients deteriorated visibly”, says the doctor.
Getting sick, “frustrated” and “guilty”
Next comes frustration and guilt. After a while, Soheil Zahir coughs, shivers. It’s the Covid-19. “I had to stay at home confined on the one hand and on the other hand take care of myself, while the woodpecker was starting to approach”.
So it’s with more serenity, “because can be a little protected against the disease”, that the emergency physician returns to the front.
Misunderstanding in the face of deconfinement measures
For the doctor, the deconfinement measures, as they are taken, do not make scientific sense. He is already preparing for a second wave. A second wave which will be “difficult” he says.
►►► Also read: Belgium has entered its first phase of deconfinement, what is changing?
“As scientists, we are used to testing. In a test, we modify a parameter and wait for the time it takes to verify the changes made. But here we modify several parameters, and we only wait ‘a week to verify. As everyone knows, it takes at least two weeks before an action can be seen at the epidemiological level “.
“Covid-19 taught us a lesson a lifetime”, blows the doctor. In the future we will no longer be able to live this way. No one is safe from coronavirus, he says. “We must always live with the idea that death is not far away and take advantage of the present time”, concludes Soheil Zahir.
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