Chennai, May 16 (PTI) A well-known city-based surgeon is among the Indian medical professionals in Dubai to have joined the war against Covid-19 in the middle eastern country, following an appeal from the Indian High Commission there.
Laparoscopic surgeon Dr J S Rajkumar was on a visit to Dubai when he decided to heed the Indian High Commission's call and volunteer himself.
"It's 2 am in the morning, and a muggy humid night. We are at an undisclosed location just outside Dubai...we are in an isolation centre with close to 500 patients in our block," he told PTI over the phone.
"The overall viral load in this area is absurdly high.
Yet, we labour all, doing 12 hour flat out shifts in search of a larger good," Dr Rajkumar, chairman of Lifeline Institute of Minimal Access (LIMA) in the city, said.
Rajkumar was joined by his wife as well.
When a few hundred new cases were being reported every day in the Emirates, the Indian High Commission requested for volunteers to fight the battle against Coronavirus when the city-based doctor and his spouse decided to volunteer.
Despite the air-conditioner, he says he sweats a lot because of the layers of masks on his face. His speech is barely intelligible.
His wife, also a doctor, was "determined to be with me even in the face of this monster called the coronavirus," he added.
"We were caught on the wrong foot by the virus, and the ensuing lockdowns...unable to leave Dubai, and pop over, back-and-forth as we had been doing for the past couple of years," Rajkumar said.
Quoting from Charles Dickens' "Tale of Two Cities," Dr Rajkumar said it was a "far, far better thing" he had ever done, on his decision to help the infected in Dubai.
Since May 1, between 700 and 900 healthcare workers have been killed by coronavirus across the world, he claimed.
