Kurdish-Danish doctor works tirelessly to fight the coronavirus

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Naila Bozo, a 28-year-old medical doctor working on the frontlines of Denmark’s coronavirus health crisis says that fear of contracting the highly-contagious disease does not affect her determination to continue her work, despite a higher proportion of women working in the health sector falling ill than their male counterparts.

“I was worried about the ramifications of the rapid transmission,” she told Kurdistan 24. “To be honest, I found a form of security in being at the frontline of the pandemic and having firsthand knowledge of what was going on and what we were doing as healthcare personnel to help our sick citizens.” 

She added that the many rules that have been put in place to prevent contagion in the workplace are crucial to the safety of those working in her hospital’s infectious disease unit. 

“We wear personal protective equipment (PPE) when we examine patients. We disinfect between every item of PPE when we take it off and we disinfect again when we are outside of the patient room,” she explained. “We clean our workstations and the phones before and after use, just as there is extra cleaning implemented.” 

According to the Danish Health Authority, a higher number of women have tested positive for the virus due to the fact that the majority of employees in the health and elderly care system are women and female.

“I have luckily not had any symptoms yet; neither has my immediate family.” 

Bozo finished a one-year residency program in infectious diseases at Odense University Hospital in 2019. “In 2020, I started a position at the Migrant Health Clinic, which is an outpatient clinic established within the Department of Infectious Diseases.”

When COVID-19 started spreading in Denmark in March, she was called upon to work in the newly established corona-units, as she explained, “due to my background in the infectious diseases specialty.”

In her unit, she admits patients who are in need of urgent treatment, “such as oxygen support and intravenous antibiotics due to a bacterial superinfection.”

“I also do rounds on our patients in the corona-units,” she added. “Sometimes, our patients are in need of more oxygen than we can give in our corona-units, so we transfer them to the intensive care unit where they are put on respirator or other ventilation support systems.”

Initially, she continued, there were “very intense weeks with many admissions and many whose conditions worsened suddenly, which is characteristic for COVID-19.”

Although in many ways, her overall workload has not changed significantly from previous weeks, “The COVID-19-patients have been more critically ill than what I am used to. I have definitely learned so much.”

She added that among the worst aspects of COVID-19 are “the fact that the patients are isolated and cannot have their loved ones with them during their long hospital admission.”

“Luckily, many have smartphones and use FaceTime and such video applications to maintain contact with family and friends. It does not, however, replace close, physical contact, which is essential for patients.” 

“When I take off my PPE, I stand close to the door and am facing away from the patient, but when all protective equipment is off, I turn toward them and let them see who I am and wish them well.”

Although Bozo lives in Denmark, her family is originally from the northern Syrian city of Qamishli. So far there has been one confirmed case in that region of the nation she once called home. “My heart bleeds for my people there as it seems like they cannot get a break.” 

“The ongoing war in Syria, the number of internally displaced refugees, the state of the overcrowded refugee camps, and the lack of access to conduct proper hygiene due to Turkey cutting of water supplies, the reduced capacities at the hospitals, and the small number of ventilators (27 ventilators for a region of 2 million people) mean that an uncontrolled outbreak will be detrimental to the region.”

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are a total of 38 confirmed coronavirus cases in Syria and two deaths. “But,” Bozo chimed in, “I think the number of infected individuals is much higher. We cannot expect to get precise numbers from Syria; the region is already so politically marred,” she said.

So far, the situation in Denmark itself appears to be improving and the number of known infections is slowly falling. As a result, in early April, the Danish government announced it would soon begin slowly opening the country back up to normal activity. 

“The strategies employed in Denmark seem to have worked,” said the medical health professional. “We can compare ourselves to Sweden who has not implemented a lockdown as strictly as in Denmark.”

According to the WHO, there are a total of 336 deaths in Denmark. Sweden’s fatalities, which have just spiked, have so far reached 1,400.

“The management of my hospital and the different units has managed to act quickly in the face of the pandemic, and I feel safe when going to work and examining COVID-19-patients. I am happy to be working with my colleagues from all kinds of specialties,” said Bozo. 

“This pandemic has taught us a lot about cooperation, solidarity, and humility in the face of a new disease as we get to learn more about how it develops and how we can possibly treat it.”

Editing by John J. Catherine