Families in distress
A Dubai-based couple, laid low by the coronavirus, found it difficult to manage their children, and a medical team struggled to break the news of the death to a wife.
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Suman and Shane Manning.
Elsewhere in the UAE, telling a young COVID-19 mother of three that her husband, also a coronavirus patient, had passed on was by no means easy.
But that was precisely what Dr Samara Khatib, Consultant Internal Medicine and team at the COVID-19 ward of Mediclinic Parkview Hospital in Dubai, was tasked to do.
“We had to take the help of mental health professionals to break the tragic news to the patient, who is in her 30s,” said the doctor. “It shook us as healthcare workers.”
Coronavirus struck other couples too in the UAE, which meant they had to leave their children in the care of others.
Dubai-based Suman Manning, who tested positive along with her triathlete husband Shane Manning, said her sister took care of her triplets during the ordeal. Although she showed no symptoms, she had to isolate herself and tell her kids and sister to keep away from her, while her husband was recovering in hospital.
“It was a particularly trying time as the kids had just started the first week of remote learning and needed some kind of support,” she said.