The United States is one of the countries most affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Sine Aras Akten, a Turkish doctor working in New York, one of the worst-hit states in the first period of the epidemic in a country where about 150,000 people have been infected with the virus because they did not take the necessary measures, wrote a book about what they saw during this period.
Akten works as a nephrologist at the 500-bed Woodhull HHC / New York University in Brooklyn.
His book "The Diary of a Turkish Doctor" was published in Turkey. The book tells the story of nine patients:
"The stories I write are real, there is a bit of fiction in the story. In the first days of the epidemic - in March, the delivery of dialysis devices and all equipment such as ventilators, masks to protect medical personnel was delayed for 15 days. We had a lot of trouble because of the large number of patients. I have never experienced anything so difficult in my life. We were on dialysis for one patient and another was left. We chose between patients. We did not recommend dialysis or a respirator to patients who were in question. We decided to kill some people. Therefore, this is the biggest problem of our health workers. "
Sine Aras Akten noted that she also contracted the virus during this time: “I had a slight fever and lost the ability to read. I put on a mask and continued my work, taking all necessary precautions. I didn't have time to rest. "
The doctor also spoke about the part of the story that affected me the most: “Among the stories I wrote, the part that I admired the most was a patient named Cook Carolyn. She was the mother of a nurse working at our hospital. We could not save him. He was in great pain, could not breathe, and died in my arms. That was the reason I wrote the book. During this time, we lost many friends and doctors. But the suicide of my female doctor colleague affected me a lot. A successful ambulance doctor with no mental strain could not be bothered by such incurable losses and felt very bad. "We can't do anything to the patients, they are dying helplessly in our hands," he said.
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