- Thousands of doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel are working around the clock to treat patients infected with the new coronavirus.
- Many of them face grueling conditions, long work hours, and fears of contracting the virus themselves. Healthcare staff have also reported having insufficient medical equipment.
- And as some people still ignore official advice to self-isolate, doctors and nurses are posting signs on social media asking people to stay at home to make their work easier.
- Scroll down to the dramatic conditions on the coronavirus outbreak’s front lines.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Doctors, nurses, and other medical staff are flocking to the front lines as the world struggles to contain the coronavirus outbreak, which has now infected more than 341,000 people and spread to at least 167 countries and territories.
As hospitals fill up and more and more people get infected on a daily basis, medical staff have to endure long hours, intensifying conditions, and the looming fear of contracting the virus themselves.
From watching patients die alone to delivering a baby infected with coronavirus, nurses and doctors alike have seen the worst of this disease.
Scroll down to see what life is like on the front lines of the coronavirus outbreak.
Doctors and nurses have worked around the clock to save the lives of those who have fallen ill with the coronavirus, like these medics huddling together to operate on a critical patient in Wuhan.
This video of medics inside a makeshift intensive care unit in Bergamo, Italy's worst-hit city, looks almost apocalyptic. (Warning: This video contains footage of acute coronavirus cases that may be distressing to watch.)
Source: Business Insider
Across Italy, doctors and nurses have also described long working hours, few supplies, and grueling conditions that has left them emotionally and physically exhausted.
"I am physically tired because the protective devices are bad, the lab coat makes me sweat, and once dressed, I can no longer go to the bathroom or drink for six hours," Alessia Bonari, an Italian nurse in Milan, wrote on Instagram earlier this month.
Source: Business Insider
Pictures of medical staff looking chafed and bruised from wearing face masks and goggles all day have also gone viral.
Doctors and nurses from countries like China and Italy - which have seen the highest infections and deaths from the virus - have been sharing selfies of their bruised faces on social media, Britain's Metro newspaper reported.
Bonari, the Italian nurse, also shared a photo of her face bruised from heavy protective gear.
http://instagr.am/p/B9gmYPLJFt_
Source: Business Insider
Medics have been battling the disease on various fronts, from picking up patients from their homes in heavy protective gear...
... to providing countless coronavirus tests to record how many people have been infected with the disease.
Some hospitals are even having so much trouble keeping up with new coronavirus patients that they've set up makeshift centers to accommodate more people. Here's a hockey arena turned temporary coronavirus assessment center in Ottawa, Canada.
Source: Ottawa Citizens
This photo shows a conference and exhibition center in Wuhan turned into a makeshift hospital, with a medical worker attending to patients in full protective gear.
The coronavirus outbreak has also brought some about extraordinary moments. This nurse in Wuhan can be seen tending to a baby who tested positive for the coronavirus 30 hours after birth.
It is still unclear whether the baby, whose mother tested positive for coronavirus, contracted the disease in the womb or after birth, according to the BBC.
Source: BBC
Meanwhile, medics in countries including the UK, Iran, Italy, and Australia have reported not having enough medical equipment to fight the virus.
Dr. Rinesh Parmar, chair of the Doctors' Association, told the BBC's "The Andrew Marr Show": "We have had doctors tell us they feel like lambs to the slaughter, that they feel like cannon fodder. GPs [general practitioners] tell us that they feel absolutely abandoned," according to The Guardian.
As hospitals get increasingly overwhelmed, medical staff around the world have posted pictures of themselves holding up signs to tell people to stay home.
These signs are from medics with the National Health Service (NHS) in Britain, which is struggling to contain the outbreak:
NHS staff are putting their lives at risk for you and your family.
All they ask in return is that you stay at home when possible.
Please RT if you are happy to help them help you.#StaySafeStayHome #NHSCovidHeroes pic.twitter.com/pGLVQBrUfn
— NHS Million (@NHSMillion) March 21, 2020
My best friends daughter is in this photo.
It's the only message#StayAtHome#SaveTheDay#SelfIsolation pic.twitter.com/xqAq8ydxGe— Greg Hetherington (@GregCKXS) March 23, 2020
Medics are sharing these messages amid reports that some people are ignoring official advice and still refusing to self-isolate.
Doctors and nurses have risked their lives fighting this pandemic.
In the Oglio Po hospital in Cremona, Italy, a fifth of the hospital's personnel has tested positive for coronavirus, Reuters reported.
"We are at the end of our strength," said Romano Paolucci, a doctor who came out of retirement to help at the hospital near Cremona, according to Reuters.
"We do not have sufficient resources and especially staff because apart from everything else, now the staff are beginning to get sick."
Meanwhile, they are also looking out for each other, keeping their spirits and morale high during these stressful times.
Britain's Metro newspaper cited multiple health workers as saying they are covering each other's shifts and lifting team morale as much as they can.
The help has even gone international. This week, a brigade of 52 Cuban doctors arrived in Italy to help the country battle the coronavirus.
"We are all afraid but we have a revolutionary duty to fulfill, so we take out fear and put it to one side," said Leonardo Fernandez, a 68-year-old intensive-care specialist, according to The New York Times.
What's clear is that these doctors and nurses aren't willing to give up, despite the difficulties. Alessia Bonari, the nurse in Milan, wrote that despite her difficulties at the hospital, she is still "proud and in love" with her job.
Source: Alessia Bonari/Instagram, Business Insider
