Corona Diaries - 19

Many people have been asking me about my experience with corona. Some ask in fear that they might have some of the symptoms, others ask for advice. I don’t mind helping anyone because everyone has been super helpful in my case. I’m getting consultations from colleagues I know, colleagues I don’t know and on social media platforms from strangers asking what to do. Based on my experience and the fact that I’m dealing with patients currently, I find that I can help others. 70% of people just need reassurance, others need to be told what to do. I’ve found the most distinctive feature to be the loss of smell. Whenever anyone tells me that they’ve lost the sense of smell, I immediately tell them to isolate themselves and get swabbed as soon as they can. I’ve diagnosed many patients based on symptoms alone without the need for a swab.

The most concerning feature is when patients start developing shortness of breath, as soon as they do, they need to seek medical attention. I’ve seen a man sitting on a wheelchair and talking normally to the nurse. He didn’t look right to me; his pattern of breathing was alarming so I immediately checked his saturation and it was 66%. He was intubated and shifted to the ICU within the hour. COVID patients are mostly stable and asymptomatic however when they get sick, they get really sick. I did a round of 16 patients yesterday and 4 of them got sick at the same time. We have patients on maximum 15L oxygen in the ward; that’s something you would never hear of before the “Corona Era”. Our ICU is full and our staff is becoming more exhausted as the days roll into one. I wonder what we’ll start doing when our beds become full and patients have nowhere to stay.

We have reached 16,764 cases in Kuwait; we’re basically increasing at a rate of around 1,000 cases every day. Remember when I said that we won’t have space for asymptomatic patients to be kept in hospital? We have reached that stage. Asymptomatic cases are now being sent home to isolate themselves. Those that are unable to isolate themselves are being kept in our isolation areas awaiting a place in quarantine areas. They keep telling us that it will be just be a few hard days and then things will get better, but they’ve been saying that for the last few months. These hard few days have become 3 months and the situation is not getting any better.

Lockdown doesn’t seem to have remedied the situation either. During lockdown we have gotten more elderly infected for some reason. Our COVID wards now have patients above 80 and 90. We had our first 99 year old man infected with COVID the other day; luckily his carer was positive too but asymptomatic so he could care for him. (Unlucky for the carer to be infected but at least he’s young and asymptomatic.) Lockdown means the roads should be empty. When I go to work, there are still many cars on the road, they can’t all be healthcare workers and police officers, it doesn’t make sense. Roads are open for “physical exercise” for two hours every day. Women in full Ramadhan attire are walking in between the houses, like it’s a fashion show. Kids on bikes and scooters are rolling around the streets. Drivers and housemaids are still taking food from houses to other houses in the same neighbourhood. Some people aren’t even wearing masks. Do they still not get it? We are losing our patients. Young patients are dying. Our ICU is reaching maximum capacity, we have nowhere to place our patients anymore. Why do you still need to gather and leave the house?

I will tell you a story that saddens me to my core.

AJ is a Bengali man who’s been in Kuwait for more than 40 years. He used to work in my grandpa’s factory since he was in his teens. I’ve known him since I was a kid. He’s become a family member rather than just a man that works for us. He was there for all our happy and sad occasions. The other factory workers and AJ always made us biryani during eid; it was a spicy biryani with all the real Indian spices. He was always there for outings when we went to farms or the desert as a family. He cried like he’d lost his own father when my grandpa died because he was his son after all. He always smiled and helped wherever he could. He worked with aluminium but he ended up doing everything else. My aunts and uncles would always call him if they needed anything to be done around their homes. AJ was our family handyman. Our customised fence wrapped around our house was made by him after it was just a drawing that my mother had doodled on a paper back in 2005.

Even when the factory shut down, AJ remained in Kuwait. He was a family member and Kuwait had become his home. His family still lived in Bangladesh and he would visit them every year. He had his own apartment and still worked for my uncle.

On the day I was discharged from Jaber Hospital, he was admitted. He’s 56 years old and has diabetes and ischaemic heart disease, having had a coronary angiography a couple of years ago and his coronary arteries were stented. AJ was only complaining of fever when he was first admitted. My aunts and uncles were in contact with him every day until they weren’t. He asked for a phone charger, a toothbrush and some snacks. My aunt spoke to him every day and sent him everything he needed and then 5 days later she lost contact. She didn’t know which ward or how to reach him. Through my contacts, I found out that he went to ICU. The family prayed for him and hoped he would make it.

Then we heard nothing.

Another week passed and nobody knew where AJ was.

I kept asking my friends in ICU but he wasn’t on their list. My uncle kept asking about him but no one had an answer. He took an excuse to visit Jaber Hospital and he found out the sad news. AJ had passed away 3 days ago. AJ had no papers and the ICU had no way of contacting his sponsor, my uncle. AJ died and his family wasn’t even informed. AJ had died alone and no one was even informed about his death.

This news had saddened me for the last few days. I’ve heard of other similar stories happening in ICUs all over Kuwait. Most non-Kuwaitis come to the hospital very sick, without their papers. They are alone and sick and unable to give their information before getting intubated and shifted to the ICU. They die and their families are not informed because no one knows how to inform them. They are buried without a funeral. Their families try to get in contact with them and then days later find out that they have lost their lives.

This is a very sad situation. Some peoples’ lives go by unnoticed; some deaths are unnoticed now too. That’s a fear for many people. The fear of leaving this world without notice. These people have spent their lives in Kuwait, they have worked hard to make enough money to send to their kids and families, so they would have a better life than they did. I don’t understand racism. I don’t understand when people say: “Jaber Hospital should be for Kuwaitis only” or “We don’t have any beds for Kuwaitis because the beds are taken up by non-K patients”.

Our population is made up of more non-K than Kuwaiti patients. These people do everything for us, they work as doctors, nurses, porters, drivers, cleaners, housemaids, servers in shops and restaurants. They fill our cars with gas, they pack our bags in supermarkets, they clean our roads and fix our cars. They build our roads, they fix our plumbing, they do our maincures and style our hair in salons as well as picking up our garbage from the outside of our houses. Why should they be treated differently to Kuwaiti citizens? Without these people we wouldn’t live normally, we wouldn’t be able to afford all the luxuries that we have taken for granted.

Anyone who has ever lived abroad for a long period of time can never say a racist comment. Because we were the outsiders; we were the ones that didn’t fit in with the rest. Anyone who has ever been on the receiving end of a racist comment will never say a racist thing to another. Racist comments are hurtful. Racist comments should not be tolerated. We are living through exceptional circumstances; we should all work together. We should be more supportive of one another. I’ve always treated everyone the same. Sometimes I’m even nicer to non-K just because I put myself in their shoes; I've been in their shoes in the past. They have left their families and countries to make money to give their families a better life. How can people be cruel to them just because of the colour of their skin or their nationality?

You can’t call yourself a “kind” person if you’re only kind to Kuwaitis. Be kind to every nationality you encounter. Be kind regardless of anyone’s skin colour. Be kind to everyone. Kindness is a beautiful trait. Kindness matters. Kindness is how you will be remembered when you die. We will be remembered by our good traits and our kindness. Our names won’t matter or how much money we had. Nothing will matter at the end, apart from kindness.

“In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.”

- Martin Luther King