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ICU. [pt.2]
Doctors like Dr Rita Almohty, who I’d met a week earlier at her medical centre, where one of the early positive diagnoses was made. I’d seen articles quoting healthcare workers speaking out anonymously, but Rita bravely took the leap and sat down to share the grim reality of her working life…
‘Every day is a battle, it’s a challenge, every day I actually think, I don’t want to die.’ She opens up about how she feels for those doctors in Italy. How like them she just wants to help people, so I ask…
‘Do you feel you're putting your life at risk by going to work every day?’ Her response blows up my ability to hold back emotion.
’Yeah, I do, she says. I've got a two-and a half year old. I'm a single mum and I'm also six months pregnant, so I've got to worry about the unborn baby as well.’
I didn’t expect that. Sadness starts to seep through.
Imagine having to make that decision every day… ‘do I put my family at risk and my unborn child or do I go to work and try to save lives?’
The conflict between my head and my heart fighting to comprehend the scale of that wave the doctors in ICU fear will hit.
I’m defeated, tears exploding inside, still trying to shield Dr Almohty from dealing with my grief.
Instead, siphoning that emotion into words for my story that start scribing themselves under my skin.
Dr Almohty’s descriptors paint the same solemn images I pictured on the walls in the ICU corridors while speaking with Doctor Katherine Pearce. We stood 1.5metres apart. The distance between us, a protection, not only against the spread of the virus, but the emotion I can see she too is holding back.
More tomorrow...
Doctors like Dr Rita Almohty, who I’d met a week earlier at her medical centre, where one of the early positive diagnoses was made. I’d seen articles quoting healthcare workers speaking out anonymously, but Rita bravely took the leap and sat down to share the grim reality of her working life…
‘Every day is a battle, it’s a challenge, every day I actually think, I don’t want to die.’ She opens up about how she feels for those doctors in Italy. How like them she just wants to help people, so I ask…
‘Do you feel you're putting your life at risk by going to work every day?’ Her response blows up my ability to hold back emotion.
’Yeah, I do, she says. I've got a two-and a half year old. I'm a single mum and I'm also six months pregnant, so I've got to worry about the unborn baby as well.’
I didn’t expect that. Sadness starts to seep through.
Imagine having to make that decision every day… ‘do I put my family at risk and my unborn child or do I go to work and try to save lives?’
The conflict between my head and my heart fighting to comprehend the scale of that wave the doctors in ICU fear will hit.
I’m defeated, tears exploding inside, still trying to shield Dr Almohty from dealing with my grief.
Instead, siphoning that emotion into words for my story that start scribing themselves under my skin.
Dr Almohty’s descriptors paint the same solemn images I pictured on the walls in the ICU corridors while speaking with Doctor Katherine Pearce. We stood 1.5metres apart. The distance between us, a protection, not only against the spread of the virus, but the emotion I can see she too is holding back.
More tomorrow...