Catastrophic’: Virus batters hospitals in Senegal’s capital

  • Date: 29-Jul-2021
  • Source: Kuwait Times
  • Sector:Healthcare
  • Country:Kuwait
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Catastrophic’: Virus batters hospitals in Senegal’s capital

DAKAR: Emergency room doctor Babacar Diop, 30, keeps getting interrupted by the ringing of his mobile phone. Relatives of patients in the saturated emergency ward in Fann hospital, in Senegal's seaside capital Dakar, are calling to ask after their loved ones. "The situation is very catastrophic," says Diop, who looks grim and fatigued at the beginning of a 12-hour night shift. Ambulances come and go bearing rasping and coughing patients-whom Diop more often than not has to turn away because of a lack of oxygen.

"We're receiving patients who are dying on the doorstep," he says. Senegal is in the grip of a third wave of COVID-19 infections, which is believed to be driven by the highly contagious Delta variant of the virus. In the West African country's capital, emergency wards are at a breaking point and doctors are struggling to maintain control.

The Fann emergency ward has 16 beds hooked up to oxygen. They are all occupied. Diop says he's turned away about 20 people in recent days. They went in search of spaces in other hospitals-or simply returned home. The number of COVID-19 deaths is underreported, the young doctor insists. "More sick people are dying at home than in the