HOUSTON, Dec 6, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – Through multiple masks, a face shield and
a protective suit he likens to those worn by astronauts, Dr Joseph Varon
bends over his Covid-19 patient and waves into the phone she is holding up.
At the other end of the video call, several loved ones express their
delight at seeing the man who helped save Gloria Garcia from the disease that
has killed more than 278,000 people in the US and counting.
Varon, the chief of staff at United Memorial, a small hospital that
primarily treats minority patients in a low-income north Houston
neighborhood, made headlines when a photo of him hugging an elderly Covid
patient on Thanksgiving went viral.
The hug was a candid moment of empathy. And Varon’s wave to Garcia’s
family is enthusiastic.
But make no mistake: the doctor is exhausted.
When AFP accompanied Varon on his rounds on Friday, it was his 260th
straight day of work.
Even the few hours he steals at home each day are interrupted by endless
phone calls. He sleeps, he says, no more than one or two hours a night.
“Don’t ask me how I can do this,” he adds.
Donuts play a role. He displays a box, adding: “Whatever they bring is
what I will eat because you don’t know when you’re going to eat again.” He
says he has gained 35 pounds (15 kilograms).
Outspoken and frustrated, Varon complained to the media as far back as
July that he and his staff were running “on fumes.”
“My staff is very tired. My nurses, they will start crying in the middle
of the day. They will break down because they are so overwhelmed with the
number of cases we’re getting that they are truly exhausted,” he tells AFP.
– Reinforcements –
Inside the critical care Covid ward, the beds are full. Staff take vitals
and check on patients. Varon does his daily rounds.
Garcia, ahead of her video call, sits up in bed and carefully arranges her
hair and makeup. Other patients lie back on their pillows, with get well
cards taped to walls.
The health workers’ faces can barely be seen through the layers of
protective gear. Some, including Varon, wear large photographs of themselves
around their necks. It was the loneliness and lack of human contact on the
ward that drove his pity for the man he hugged in the viral photo, he said.
During the summer, as cases across Texas surged, they were backed up by a
specialist army team providing medical support.
But the military soon moved on. Varon and his staff kept working.
They have some reinforcements still: since the pandemic began, travelling
nurses across America have rushed towards the danger even as others have
hunkered down.
Demetra Ransom is one of them. She left her home in Florida to head first
to New York, epicenter of the US outbreak in the spring, and then to other
hotspots before landing in Houston.
At United Memorial she is tactile with the patients, touching their arms
and shoulders to comfort them. She talks even to those who are non-
responsive, she says, updating them on their condition in case they can hear.
– ‘Covid hunters’ –
It did not have to be this way, Varon believes.
He has expressed his frustration with the American failure to control the
pandemic many times.
Texas Governor George Abbott, a Republican and ally of President Donald
Trump, ordered a one-month lockdown in the state in April — but did not
renew it.
The wearing of masks did not become compulsory in Texas until July, as
cases surged and the state become one of the new US epicenters. Abbot says
there will be no more lockdowns.
“People are out there in bars, restaurants, malls,” Varon told CNN when he
was interviewed about the viral photo. “It is crazy. People don’t listen and
then they end up in my ICU.”
If Americans would follow basic health and social distancing guidelines,
“health care workers like me could hopefully rest,” he said.
He does not appear to dwell on sleep, however. He knows there are miles to
go.
The next six to 12 weeks, over the Christmas period and into the new year,
will likely be the “darkest weeks in modern American medical history,” he
said in a recent interview with ABC.
Already cases in Texas are so high that Abbott has requested a military
medical center be converted for intake of non-Covid patients to free up space
in hospitals. County officials, meanwhile, have requested additional mobile
morgues.
United Memorial recently added another Covid wing in anticipation.
For now, in the main staging area which is separated from the ward’s rooms
by barriers, United Memorial staffers shed some of their protective gear
beneath a sign reading “COVID HUNTERS.”
Their gazes fixed, they pause and catch their breath.