In the early days of the Covid-19 outbreak, doctors and nurses in Iran battled to save lives without the proper protection. Some washed their own gowns and masks or sterilized them in ovens. Others wrapped their bodies in plastic bags. By mokhbersahafi
FILE — In this March 1, 2020 file photo, a medic treats a patient infected with coronavirus, at a hospital in Tehran, Iran. Dozens of medical staffers have died of COVID-19 in Iran. Doctors and nurses and other staffers have been hard hit. During the first 90 days of the virus outbreak alone, about one medical staffer died each day.
“We are heading fast toward a disaster,” said a young Isfahan doctor who has been working tirelessly, checking dozens of suspected coronavirus patients before referring them to hospitals. In the beginning, medical staffers faced the outbreak with very limited equipment. Some washed their own gowns and masks or sterilized them in regular ovens. Others wrapped their bodies in plastic bags they bought at the supermarket.
The country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, proclaimed on March 10 that the doctors, nurses, and medical staffers who died in the fight against the coronavirus in Iran were “martyrs.” Pictures of deceased doctors have been placed alongside those of soldiers who were killed in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, which claimed the lives of a million Iranians and Iraqis.
But doctors interviewed by the AP say that before the official announcement, they started to see cases with the same symptoms as the novel coronavirus and warned the national Health Ministry that it needed to take action. Two days after announcing the first cases, Iran held its parliamentary elections where thousands lined up to vote. That same day, doctors in Gilan — one of the worst hit areas in Iran — appealed to the governor for help, saying their hospitals were flooded with patients amid a shortage of masks and other protection equipment.
Death certificates were not recording the coronavirus as the cause of deaths — either because not all severe cases were tested or just for the sake of keeping the numbers down. Thousands of unaccounted deaths were attributed to secondary causes like “heart attack” or “respiratory distress.” Clinics and hospitals became hubs of infection, even as parliamentary elections and national celebrations went on:
— According to one health official and two doctors, the total deaths in Gilan have surpassed 1,300 so far. The last breakdown provided by the government on March 22 said the total did not exceed 200.Said another doctor: “The first weeks, the system has collapsed,” with patients sleeping in the corridors and doctors forced to make painful choices. A nurse at Shafa Hospital in the provincial capital of Rasht said ventilators were removed from dying patients to let others live.
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