An Iranian nurse shares his experience in the COVID wards and self-isolating in a tent after testing positive for COVID-19

English transcript | نسخة عربية

Nationality: Iranian
Occupation: Nurse
Date of interview: 3 July 2020
Language of interview: English

The call for prayer can be heard in the background. Arash is sitting in a tent outside of his building in Jaber Ali, where he lives with his wife and youngest daughter. This is where he chose to dwell during his days of quarantine for Covid, to protect his family from catching the virus, and he wants to recapture his feelings and memories from that time.

Arash grew up in a middle class family in Iran, and studied to become a nurse, because his family didn’t want him to live far away to study engineering. Nursing was low-status and low income so he was reluctant to pursue it but he did well in his studies. Now he is 45 and is thankful for his choice, he loves being a nurse, easing people’s pain and helping them heal. He feels grateful that his work makes a difference in other people’s lives. Arash moved to Kuwait around 2004, during the H1N1 outbreak and was immediately assigned to the H1N1 ICU Team, where he contracted the virus. When Covid hit Kuwait, he was assigned to the COVID ward, although he had hoped that they might not ask, given what he went through with H1N1.

At the beginning, he and his colleagues were all self-studying to try to figure out how to protect themselves in the COVID ward. There were no guidelines or protocols and it was unclear what precautions would protect them. Colleagues were showing symptoms, coughing throughout their case meetings and insisting it was nothing, some even refusing to wear masks. Within a week, the hospital cases started to spike, and 12 days of work felt like 12 years - just running from the moment of punching in. Days merged into each other and they were swamped with so much work they barely had time to think or to rest.

And then a colleague tested positive for COVID. Everyone was tested, and the day Arash got his call with the test results, he refused to believe he was positive. He was in shock - he had been so careful and had no symptoms. What if he had infected his family? He had to quarantine, but there was no way to isolate in his apartment, so he set up a tent outside his building. The first night his young daughter cried asking why her Daddy was avoiding them. Arash cried with her. He spent 28 days alone in the tent. He slept, ate, and worked there. It was hard for his family to get their supplies because lockdown started, he and his wife and child were all in quarantine and they were new to the neighborhood. His friends tried to make sure the family had basic supplies, and his family also lived very simply so they wouldn’t need to ask for much.

The moment Arash tested negative, his supervisor told him he would go back to work, this time in the COVID ICU. Working there, he felt that his experience of having COVID made him more empathetic to his patients. He understands their shock and is a better nurse to them. Because it is the ICU, many of the patients worry they will die and not see their family again, so he encourages them to express their feelings and he spends more time comforting them. He says he feels blessed to work there, thankful that God gave him this opportunity to be a frontliner doing good for mankind. He feels like COVID, while it has been very difficult, has taught him to value moments...to tell our loved ones we love them, appreciate the hugs we give and the ones we receive. The pandemic taught him to recognize how precious these moments are.

“What I have learned about this pandemic and COVID is giving a big lesson, which I have not learned before... whatever we have in the life, whatever we own in the life doesn't matter, but what kind of relationship we had, what kind of impacts we make in other's life that matters in the life. That's important. That's important.”

In the clip above, Arash recalls how COVID-19 impacted his work as a nurse, and his reaction after he tested positive.

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