‘Coronavirus warriors’ ask people to follow measures

TEKIRDAG, Turkey

Nurses in northwestern Turkey fighting the coronavirus pandemic on the front lines said Sunday they want everyone to follow precautions to reduce the burden on health care professionals.

Working in pandemic and intensive care departments, they have been forced to distance themselves from their families for fear of transmitting the virus to their loved ones but experience the greatest joy when patients recover.

Tansu Timur, one of the nurses at Dr. Ismail Fehmi Cumalioglu City Hospital in northwestern Turkey’s Tekirdag province, said dealing with the pandemic has been very difficult for health workers as they have to keep away from their families and social life, but they never complain.

"I just want this process to end. We are happy with the sacrifices we’ve made. Seeing patients recover is enough for us,” said Timur.

“We sacrifice so much and lose nothing. Everyone can make sacrifices,” she said, noting that the most important thing is human health and it would be assured when the disease stops spreading through people following the COVID-19 measures.

Nurse Nur Banu Uzun said they have closely witnessed what patients who were infected with the disease were going through.

Emphasizing that thoughts such as ‘the pandemic will not affect me’ or “Nothing will happen to me” are wrong, Uzun said: “There are people who come to the intensive care unit (ICU) on foot and leave in a worse condition.”

“As health workers, we ask people to please do not remove your mask and keep your distance to ease our burden,” said Uzun, who advised people not to visit their loved ones and relatives if possible.

“We want the pandemic process to end. We want the disease to end. It's exhausting working so hard and being separated from the family," she said.

Uzun said many patients have been discharged in a healthy state, which is also gratifying.

"It's a great feeling to treat people and discharge them from here in a month. Anyone who doesn't experience it doesn't know how it feels. The best part of the treatment process is getting positive feedback from people, discharging patients.

“Our biggest request from people is please don't take off your mask, keep your distance. People need to do everything they can to ease our burden."

Nurse Dilay Hursan said that getting positive feedback from the patients they treated motivated them.

Calling on everyone to comply more with COVID-19 measures, Hursan said: "We want people to put themselves in our shoes. Everyone should think of themselves as a health worker and take precautions.”

“We've been fighting the pandemic for a year. We have observed that there is a positive recovery process with strict measures, and we want our people to keep up with the measures because discharging patients motivates us more."

*Writing by Merve Berker