TESTIMONY
This opening week will be "like Pearl Harbor or like September 11". In the United States, a health catastrophe is looming. The country, which has recorded 1,200 deaths in 24 hours, is particularly affected by the coronavirus pandemic. In the field, the nursing staff are active. In New York, the epicenter of the crisis, a thousand doctors and military nurses were sent there as reinforcements this weekend. But hospitals in the region are overwhelmed.
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A lack of masks ...
As Doctor Jason Shatkin himself says, his hospital is a "front line". Seven days a week, this doctor fights to cope with the growing number of sick people at Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, New Jersey, across from Manhattan. "We had to add beds in meeting rooms," says this pulmonary specialist ... who must also use the same mask five times to save material.
... and respirators
There are also not enough respirators. Sometimes you have to make unthinkable choices. A few days ago, Jason Shatkin had as patient a 72-year-old woman, who was impossible to save. He calls his children, and offers to remove the respirator to let their mother go without suffering.
"They replied 'can we think about it?' I told them 'of course you can think about it, I will never tell you otherwise, but there is someone else who desperately needs this respirator,' ”says Jason Shatkin. "I told them 'if you allow us to take it from your mother, it could save a life ...' And they said yes. We were all in tears and the ventilator was installed on another patient."
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"I cry several times a day"
The doctor sees not only elderly people die. There are also younger children, such as recently a 44-year-old man with five children. "To be frank, I cry, several times a day," confesses Doctor Shatkin. "I let everything come out, and then I raise my head and go back to it."
A few days ago, good news came to light up the sky of his hospital: Jason Shatkin was able to extub two patients. "We were so happy! We clapped our hands in the corridors, we hugged, we cried for joy," he says, moved. "That's it, this disease: on the one hand, it destroys humanity, and on the other it brings out the best."
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One of Dr. Shatkin's patients was able to see his family by videoconference for the first time in three weeks… "A small victory", says the doctor, knowing nevertheless that the peak is not yet reached in the New area York. "With each progress, he concludes, the virus strikes harder, and it reminds us who is the boss".