With two hundred new deaths every day linked to Covid-19 over the past two weeks, Iran remains at the highest level of daily deaths since the epidemic officially began in February. Monday July 27, the total death toll was 15,912. According to Deputy Minister of Health Iraj Harirchi, “The situation in the country is very bad”.
On the front line of this health crisis are young doctors in the process of specializing who must, during the first three years of their studies, work in public medical centers. Reza (her first name has been changed for fear of reprisals) is in her first year of specializing in internal medicine and works in a hospital in a large city in eastern Iran. “We are sixteen doctors. So far, thirteen have already been infected. For the moment, I have been spared ”, explains the young man, contacted via WhatsApp messaging.
Reza does twenty-four hour shifts twelve days a month. “Sometimes I don’t stop for thirty-six hours straight, he confides. We keep filling out death certificates, seeing new patients and their condition worsens very quickly. Sometimes we don’t even have time to hospitalize them. We go crazy with fatigue. ” On social networks, the list of doctors and nurses who have died as a result of Covid-19 contamination continues to grow. No national report has existed for three months: the last, published at the end of April, amounted to 100 people.
“Test kits are increasingly rare”
While caregivers are exhausted and find themselves fewer in number, the number of patients is increasing. “Our hospital has seven floors, explains Reza. Today, all are dedicated to patients with Covid-19, compared to only four during the first wave. “ Every day, Reza lists between five and six dead. Like other doctors regularly consulted by The world, he considers that the real figure is higher than that given by the authorities. “Officials are content to count the dead and sick whose PCR test [tests virologiques] came back positive. However, we do not do the test for everyone ”, he argues.
According to a new directive from the Ministry of Health, the PCR test is now only covered by Social Security for pregnant women, people over the age of 60 with severe symptoms of Covid-19, or suffering from heart disease. “Test kits are increasingly scarce in Iran, because the dollar has risen noticeably”, says Babak, a young doctor working in poor neighborhoods in southern Tehran.
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