Meet Dr.Ahmad, one of the medical professionals fighting on the COVID-19 front in Syria

My name is Ahmad Sayeyd Yusef, I live in Idlib in the northwest of Syria. I graduated medical school and I used to be an orthopedics surgery resident. Currently I’m working as an Internist and on the frontlines of COVID-19 in Syria.

I’ll start by introducing the idea of the isolation centers. Each center consists of four female and four male nurses, infection control officers, janitors, a manager, and an on call doctor. We are three doctors, each one of us takes two 24-hours shifts to cover the isolation center for the whole week. We start everyday by the morning rounds, we check up on the patients and conduct a clinical examination for each one of them, and then we update their meds list in accordance with test and examination results.  

Here’s how the morning rounds usually go, we start by wearing a protective suit and a N95 mask suitable for the pandemic. We start from the area designated for the people suspecting a COVID-19 infection, and then we move on to the area of the confirmed cases.  During this time, one of the nurses keeps registering new patients. We accept patients or refuse to do so depending on the center’s capacity as well as the severity of each case. 

We accept the cases that we can handle. We start by clinically examining the patient and then performing a PCR test. If the result is positive we give the people a choice, they can either isolate themselves at the center, or at home if possible. Most people prefer to isolate themselves at the center, only a few expressed their ability to do self-isolation at home. When they choose to do so and prove that their home is suitable for isolation, we provide the needed instructions and we let them sign a pledge to complete all of the isolation days at home.

Generally, we only accept non-critical and moderate cases of COVID to our center. We don’t accept critical cases in an isolation center as these kinds of cases need a hospital to get the proper care. According to WHO’s protocols critical cases should be treated in a hospital and not in an isolation center. Though we do follow those protocols, one day a patient came to our center. He was an elderly with blood pressure problems and an oxygenation level below 50. He had roamed all the hospitals and isolation centers with no luck of finding an available bed. We didn’t even have any oxygen cylinders at the time, but we had to accept him and do whatever we could to save his life. The whole center started working to acquire an oxygen cylinder at any cost, and we stayed all night providing care for him until we were able to find a slot for him in a hospital the next morning. This was one of the hardest days for us as a team, full of pressure, stress and heroic efforts. It was an example of how we sometimes have to do things we don’t do under normal circumstances. Thankfully, that patient recovered completely, Abu Ramiz is now back to his little shop.

We faced a lot of difficulties while responding to the COVID-19 crisis. For example, some lockdown rules should’ve been deployed in the area to slow down the spread, but that didn’t happen. At first COVID started spreading quickly among the youth filling the isolation centers with patients, but then COVID made its way to the elderly which was a huge disaster. During that period, as the number of deaths started to fly we started to feel helpless and guilty. There were some attempts to hide the number of deaths at first, but after a short period of time the correct numbers started to show. 

I can summarize a part of the challenges we faced as follows: The insufficient number of beds in hospitals in general and more especially ICU beds. The lack of enough oxygen sources. The lack of enough medicine. Insufficient resources in general was one of the hardest challenges. At one point it was difficult to get our hands on protective suits to protect ourselves while treating patients. Some of the challenges were even more basic, like the lack of proper heating in the medical centers. Something as fundamental as food was even a problem during the pandemic as all patients were eating the same meals. Normally, you’d have special meals for each patient depending on their medical status, so you’d have a meal specially prepared for cardiac patients, one that’s specially prepared for diabetic patients and so on. In our case during the pandemic we offered the same meals to all patients no. 

Here’s how all our week looks like: At the end of the week all of Idlib’s hospitals, isolation centers, and ICUs get packed with patients. Then someone brings a member of their families as they are  in the jaws of death with an oxygen level in the 50s, and asks us to accept them into the center. We don’t have the capacity to handle such cases, we don’t have the needed equipment. That patient gets stuck between packed hospitals where there are no available beds, and isolation centers that can’t provide them with the proper care.

Note: We had this conversation with Dr Ahmad at the beginning of 2021, COVID had recently made its way into Syria back then. We tried to get a new update about the current situation from Dr Ahmad, but he’s very busy dealing with a huge surge in cases in Syria as the Delta variant started spreading in Syria worsening the situation dramatically. We’ll try to get as many updates as we can about the matter and share them with our audience soon.

We met Dr.Ahmad through our friends at Violet as he works in one of their isolation centers. Huge thanks to all of the health workers in Syria and around the world for their huge efforts in fighting the pandemic.

COVID-19 IN SYRIA: The number of vaccine doses that were provided for northern Syria is incredibly low compared to the population.

My name is Noor Asidi, I studied nursing and midwifery. I currently work at Early Warning, Alert and Response Network (EWARN), where I take swabs and conduct COVID-19 tests. 

First we prepare the testing devices and the necessary forms, then we start reaching out to isolation centers as well as individual patients who were showing symptoms but were not admitted to a healthcare center.

Noor Asidi at the COVID-19 testing center in Idlib / Abdullah Hammam

We health workers fighting COVID are in immediate danger, so we have to take all possible precautions. That’s why I put on all my protective gear before I begin taking swabs. After I take a swab from the patient, our team provides the patient with information about the virus, how it spreads, how they can isolate themselves, and we advise them to stay in isolation until the swab results come back. If the swab is positive, we tell them to self- isolate either at home, without coming in contact with anyone, or at one of the available isolation centers. We also explain to COVID-19 positive patients how important it is to wear a mask and take the prescribed medication. 

Noor Asidi taking nose swab from a patient in Idlib / Abdullah Hammam

One of the biggest issues we face in northern Syria is the lack of oxygen supplies in the isolation centers. If an elderly person or someone with chronic illness comes to us, there would still be no possibility of admitting them into the center due to either the lack of doctors or the lack of enough oxygen. 

What I think people can do is collaborate and work towards expanding the oxygen capacity that our isolation centers have. This could perhaps be done by providing small mobile oxygenating devices or by supporting oxygen-generating plant projects in the area. 

The number of vaccine doses that were provided for northern Syria is  incredibly  low compared to the population. 

When the vaccine was first announced, most people had their doubts about it, some people even refused to take it. Now, after we have seen  the positive effects the vaccine has carried with it to other countries, and as studies keep confirming that the vaccines are created in accordance with WHO, we’re changing our minds and leaning more towards having the vaccine. 

Personally, I took the first dose of the vaccine about four weeks ago, I didn’t get any of the side effects or symptoms that some people are spreading fear about. I plan on taking the second dose, of course, to achieve the best protection possible, and I do advise everyone to comply with their healthcare provider and take the vaccine if they’ve been advised to.

Photos credit: Abdullah Hammam