Doctors put personal lives on hold to fight COVID-19 pandemic

Đỗ Thị Băng Ngân, doctor at Quảng Ninh Lungs Hospital, talks online to her future husband after work. Photos nhandan.com.vn

QUẢNG NINH — Đỗ Thị Băng Ngân had no other choice but to delay her wedding earlier this year.

This is the third time she has made the decision. Ngân and her fiance have no idea when their wedding will take place.

Both of them are doctors. Ngân works for Quảng Ninh Lungs Hospital and her husband works for Quảng Ninh General Hospital in northern Quảng Ninh Province.

When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out for the first time in the province in early last February, Ngân was among many volunteer doctors transferred to the centralised quarantine area to help treat infected patients.

The outbreak was more complicated than the couple had expected. The wedding, which was scheduled to take place in mid-February, was postponed.

As a frontline doctor, Ngân worked hard in the quarantine area and only returned home three months later.

The couple planned to hold the wedding last August when the second wave of the pandemic broke out in her future husband's hometown in northern Hải Dương Province.

Due to the social distancing measures applied in the province, their wedding had to be delayed again. Ngân decided to volunteer to join the virus fight in the province.

The third delay was when the latest outbreak was reported in Hải Dương and Quảng Ninh provinces before the Tết (Lunar New Year) holiday. The hospital where Ngân was working has become a treatment facility for COVID-19 patients.

The wedding has been delayed and the couple can't be together on the wedding day, but they decided to be together in another way: they have volunteered to work in field hospital No2.

"The pandemic has been so complicated here. We've decided to put aside our personal plans and focus on stamping out the pandemic," she said.

Special Tết

Dr Nguyễn Thị Ánh is busy testing samples of patients in northern Hải Dương Province, the hotspot of the COVID-19 pandemic in Việt Nam.

In the COVID-19 epicentre in Chí Linh City, Hải Dương Province, Dr Vũ Quy Bắc, husband, and Dr Nguyễn Thị Ánh, wife, said they had a very special Tết this year.

They have been frontline doctors at the hotspot for the past two weeks since the first locally-transmitted case was confirmed in the city. Sending their two kids to relatives, the couple have joined the fight against the disease. The husband works as a doctor of the Medical Examination Department directly involved in patient treatment and the wife is among five team members conducting testing for COVID-19 patients.

The number of COVID-19 patients increases day by day, leaving frontline doctors overworked. They seldom take a rest and always have a full workload, especially when the hotspot at Poyun Company was recorded.

Ánh said this was the most challenging time for them in 14 years of marriage as two of their relatives passed away and they could not return home for the funerals.

"I was sitting in the lab and stunned for a while after hearing the news. At that moment I thought the medical profession was really arduous," she said.

Ánh said during 20 days of working in the same hospital, they worked in different units and spoke only by messages.

New Year's Eve was unforgettable for the couple when they were quarantined in two different rooms and could only look at each other from afar.

"We've been together since we were students. We've got love and courage from each other, so we'll strive our best to fight the pandemic," she said. — VNS