Imagine that you are a doctor at a well-run Norwegian hospital. Then you travel across the globe, where several corona deaths occur daily.
Where, as a highly pregnant and corona-sick woman, one can be denied entry to hospital.
Norwegian Monica Thallinger (42) from Bærum witnessed this when she worked in Yemen in the Middle East, under the auspices of MSF. She has just returned home after a stay of two and a half months.
– The situation when it comes to the corona in Yemen has been quite bad. I got there in March and then we were on our way up the basket with infections. They had the first wave last summer, so this was their second wave, she tells Good Morning Norway.
MSF has opened a hospital in the city of Aden, where they treat seriously ill covid patients. Monica says that every day they experienced a large increase in patients.
– AT WORK: For two and a half months, Monica Thallinger worked as a doctor in Yemen. Photo: Athmar Mohammed / MSF
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– We had to expand with new beds every single day. We started with 25 regular beds and eleven intensive beds. We ended up with 80 beds and 14 intensive beds.
Apart from the Red Cross, which had a clinic for milder illness, her team were the only ones to treat seriously ill people and intensive care patients in the area.
– And when there is only one offer for so many people, you can imagine how much demand there will be.
See the full interview at the top of the case!
Lack of oxygen
Recently, the news picture has been marked by India’s great lack of oxygen, which leads to many lives being lost. Yemen also has this problem, according to the doctor.
– It is a huge challenge. Obviously, obtaining oxygen is a major problem internationally in countries with less resources. And now during the corona pandemic, where you get many patients at the same time, it is a huge challenge to get enough, she says and continues:
– 600 CYLINDERS: At the hospital Monica worked at, the 600 cylinders with oxygen are used every day. Photo: Athmar Mohammed / MFS
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– We had an enormous logistics system to get oxygen in place. At our hospital, we used 600 cylinders every day. A cylinder weighs 60 kilograms and is 150 centimeters high, so there are massive amounts of oxygen. This was to be circulated inside the hospital.
Monica makes no secret of the fact that she thinks the working day in Yemen is tough.
– It is of course terribly demanding. Now I have worked for many years in MSF, so I have run into that way of working. You work very technically and very professionally while you are there. You can not do anything else. But of course we are human and it affects me very much all the patients we see. It’s tough and the reactions often come in the afternoon and evening, and after I have returned home.
Rescued a pregnant woman
There is one story in particular that has made an extra impression on Monica. A sunshine story that could have ended in a completely different way.
In Yemen, being pregnant with corona is a high risk. One day, the intensive care doctor from Bærum received a 29-year-old woman who had her third pregnancy.
– She came in and was seriously ill. She ended up in the intensive care unit – it was as if she only survived the hospitalization.
– SURVIVED: Thanks to Monica, the 29-year-old woman’s baby survived. Photo: Private
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Monica realized that she had to act fast. As the woman was in week 37 of the pregnancy, the 42-year-old knew that there was a good chance that the baby would survive if she got the baby out.
– The problem was that everything was closed by hospitals. The public hospital, which performs a caesarean section, would not receive her and none of the private ones would receive her. Everything and everyone that dealt with the corona was taboo.
At the last minute, Monica got organized with another MSF hospital that deals with trauma surgery. The woman was transported there, and while the Norwegian doctor took care of the anesthesia, a gynecologist performed the caesarean section.
– We then had a healthy baby. Fortunately, the mother got much better after she got the baby out of her womb, because then she could breathe easier afterwards.
Today there is a little girl in Yemen named Monica.
– I’m getting very humble. It is very nice to have a baby named after him. Most of all, it is good to see that the mother and child recovered, and that they have helped.
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