• About Us
  • Who Are We
  • Work With Us
Tuesday, January 31, 2023
No Result
View All Result
NEWSLETTER
The Globe Post
39 °f
New York
44 ° Fri
46 ° Sat
40 ° Sun
41 ° Mon
No Result
View All Result
The Globe Post
No Result
View All Result
Home Opinion

Hospital Warzones: What Syrian and US Health Workers Now Share

Rania Kassab Sweis by Rania Kassab Sweis
05/01/20
in Opinion
Medics and hospital workers tend to a COVID-19 patient outside the Montefiore Medical Center Moses Campus in the Bronx, New York City.

Medics and hospital workers tend to a COVID-19 patient outside the Montefiore Medical Center Moses Campus in the Bronx, New York City. Photo: John Moore, AFP

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

“This emergency room is a warzone.” On March 30, a visibly anguished emergency room doctor in Brooklyn, New York, described her workspace as best she could in a televised interview on CNN.

She appeared in a bustling hospital room, not too far from a truck that was parked outside and loaded with ice to preserve human corpses. Behind this doctor, stretchers held countless unnamed patients, their faces blurred to ensure anonymity.

The equipment buzzed and beeped, nurses hopped across hallways, and florescent lights dulled everything to a blueish hue that matched the ominousness of a world impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fighting Coronavirus

During this pandemic, experts and media have articulated our relationship to COVID-19 through the metaphor of war. New York governor Andrew Cuomo deployed the metaphor freely, punctuating his message once with “We’re gonna kick COVID-19’s a**.”

President Donald Trump ended briefings with a phrase that likens the pandemic to a single, violent foe: “We’re gonna win.” Countless politicians have urged their local communities to “fight” the pandemic by staying home and washing hands.

The assumptions here indicate the country is at war, and the enemy is COVID-19. All citizens are potential casualties in this war, but medical professionals are the ones who are considered to be on the frontlines of battle, in the throes of danger.

Syrian Doctors on the Frontlines

As a medical anthropologist who since 2014 has conducted extensive research with Syrian doctors on the frontlines of the civil war in Syria, discourses linking medicine and conflict are not new to me.

The realities around COVID-19 in the United States – particularly the recent erection of field hospitals in parks, the frantic rationing of medical supplies, the need to improvise medicine on-the-spot, and the use of Tele-health to deliver care from afar – sound eerily familiar.

These realities, ostensibly so new to the United States, have been the norm in refugee camps and crisis zones throughout the Middle East since the Arab Spring took hold in 2011.

The trauma, fear, and frustration American healthcare workers are currently experiencing resemble the emotional burdens many Syrian doctors have carried for years now.

We are marshalling the full power of government and society to achieve victory over the virus. Together, we will endure, we will prevail, and we will WIN! #CARESAct pic.twitter.com/zb2PJTldGQ

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 27, 2020

We need to consider the circumstances that led each group of healthcare workers to this precarity. Each group has waged legitimate grievances against state and economic systems that have failed them. It is noteworthy that from the outset of COVID-19, some local and national figures were more concerned about protecting the market economy than saving lives, much less those lives of front-line care providers.

We can see in these situations the impossibility of medical neutrality, how politics and healthcare are mutually constitutive, and how western biomedicine is not a culture free practice decoupled from economics or the social world around us.

Obligation to Save Lives

Syrian doctors bring much to bear on how healthcare workers become situated on the “frontlines” of any national crisis without the safety and distance neutrality affords. More than any other aid group, they – and the hospitals they work in – have been the targets of state aerial bombardment precisely because of their life-saving potential.

Despite the risks work poses, they continue to provide care because, as numerous doctors have shared with me, they have a professional and national obligation to save lives.

Healthcare workers in the United States are currently in dire crisis, but Syrian and other Middle Eastern medical professionals have grappled with similar conditions throughout the years. Hundreds have lost their lives while providing care and others continue to amass a wealth of experiential knowledge about biomedicine that the world should, in this moment, find valuable.

‘We Can Help’

During a medical workshop in Orlando, Florida in 2017, I spoke with a young Syrian doctor named Majed. At the end of an extensive interview about his aid work in the war, I asked if he had any last thoughts to share. He paused and then spoke into my recorder in a strikingly authentic and earnest manner:

“I just want the world to know that we have knowledge and skills that others can use. We have a lot to offer the world, we have seen so much and we can help.”

Perhaps we are witnessing a moment in history when American doctors must lean on those in the Middle East for assistance, expertise, and commiseration, inverting what for decades has been a one-way street when it comes to global medical aid.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of The Globe Post.
ShareTweet
Rania Kassab Sweis

Rania Kassab Sweis

Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Richmond. Dr. Sweis's research focuses on medical anthropology, global health and humanitarianism, and the Middle East and North Africa region

Related Posts

George Santos from the 3rd Congressional district of New York
Opinion

George Santos for Speaker!

by Stephen J. Lyons
January 16, 2023
A woman undergoing COVID test in China
Featured

Soaring Covid Cases Shine Light on China’s Healthcare Gap

by Staff Writer
January 11, 2023
Top view of the US House of Representatives
National

Chaos as US House Adjourns Without Choosing Speaker

by Staff Writer
January 4, 2023
Commuters waiting for buses in Metro Manila. Philippines
Opinion

Eight Billion and Counting…

by Stephen J. Lyons
November 29, 2022
Donald Trump
National

US Supreme Court Freezes Release of Trump Tax Returns

by Staff Writer
November 1, 2022
Donald Trump
National

US Capitol Riot Probe Votes to Subpoena Trump to Testify

by Staff Writer
October 13, 2022
Next Post
Leona Grandison, Owner of New Orleans’ Candle Light Lounge, Dies of Coronavirus

Leona Grandison, Owner of New Orleans' Candle Light Lounge, Dies of Coronavirus

President of the United States Donald Trump and President of China, Xi Jinping attend a meeting of business leaders

The US' China Gambit Has Failed. It Is Time to Decouple

Please login to join discussion

Recommended

Israeli security forces in Jerusalem

Palestinian Gunman Kills 7 in East Jerusalem Synagogue Attack

January 30, 2023
The Doomsday Clock reads 100 seconds to midnight, a decision made by The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, during an announcement at the National Press Club in Washington, DC on January 23, 2020

‘Doomsday Clock’ Moves Closest Ever to Midnight

January 25, 2023
Police work near the scene of a mass shooting in Monterey Park, California

California Lunar New Year Mass Shooter Dead, Motive Unclear: Police

January 23, 2023
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern

Race on To Replace Ardern as New Zealand Prime Minister

January 20, 2023
Pfizer logo and vaccines

Pfizer to Sell More Drugs at Cost to Poor Nations

January 18, 2023
Rescuers inspect the wreckage at the site of a Yeti Airlines plane crash in Pokhara, Nepal

At Least 67 Killed in Nepal Plane Crash

January 16, 2023

Opinion

George Santos from the 3rd Congressional district of New York

George Santos for Speaker!

January 16, 2023
Commuters waiting for buses in Metro Manila. Philippines

Eight Billion and Counting…

November 29, 2022
Mahsa Amini protests

Imagining a Free Iran

October 24, 2022
Vladimir Putin

How 18th Century International Law Clarifies the Situation in Ukraine

September 29, 2022
Vladimir Putin

Falling for Putin

September 15, 2022
US President Donald Trump

Donald Trump Thanks You for Your Sacrifice

August 17, 2022
Facebook Twitter

Newsletter

Do you like our reporting?
SUBSCRIBE

About Us

The Globe Post

The Globe Post is part of Globe Post Media, a U.S. digital news organization that is publishing the world's best targeted news sites.

submit oped

© 2018 The Globe Post

No Result
View All Result
  • National
  • World
  • Business
  • Interviews
  • Lifestyle
  • Democracy at Risk
    • Media Freedom
  • Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Columns
    • Book Reviews
    • Stage
  • Submit Op-ed

© 2018 The Globe Post