Do Thi Bang Ngan, doctor at Quang Ninh Lungs Hospital, talks online to her future husband after work. Photos nhandan.com.vn

Both of them are doctors. Ngan works for Quang Ninh Lungs Hospital and her husband works for Quang Ninh General Hospital in northern Quang Ninh Province.

When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out for the first time in the province in early last February, Ngan was among many volunteer doctors transferred to the centralised quarantine area to help treat infected patients.

The outbreak was more complicated than the couple had expected. The wedding, which was scheduled to take place in mid-February, was postponed.

As a frontline doctor, Ngan worked hard in the quarantine area and only returned home three months later.

The couple planned to hold the wedding last August when the second wave of the pandemic broke out in her future husband’s hometown in northern Hai Duong Province.

Due to the social distancing measures applied in the province, their wedding had to be delayed again. Ngan decided to volunteer to join the virus fight in the province.

The third delay was when the latest outbreak was reported in Hai Duong and Quang Ninh provinces before the Tet (Lunar New Year) holiday. The hospital where Ngan was working has become a treatment facility for COVID-19 patients.

The wedding has been delayed and the couple can’t be together on the wedding day, but they decided to be together in another way: they have volunteered to work in field hospital No2.

“The pandemic has been so complicated here. We’ve decided to put aside our personal plans and focus on stamping out the pandemic,” she said.

Special Tet

Dr Nguyen Thi Anh is busy testing samples of patients in northern Hai Duong Province, the hotspot of the COVID-19 pandemic in Vietnam.

In the COVID-19 epicentre in Chi Linh City, Hai Duong Province, Dr Vu Quy Bac, husband, and Dr Nguyen Thi Anh, wife, said they had a very special Tet this year.

They have been frontline doctors at the hotspot for the past two weeks since the first locally-transmitted case was confirmed in the city. Sending their two kids to relatives, the couple have joined the fight against the disease. The husband works as a doctor of the Medical Examination Department directly involved in patient treatment and the wife is among five team members conducting testing for COVID-19 patients.

The number of COVID-19 patients increases day by day, leaving frontline doctors overworked. They seldom take a rest and always have a full workload, especially when the hotspot at Poyun Company was recorded.

Anh said this was the most challenging time for them in 14 years of marriage as two of their relatives passed away and they could not return home for the funerals.

“I was sitting in the lab and stunned for a while after hearing the news. At that moment I thought the medical profession was really arduous,” she said.

Anh said during 20 days of working in the same hospital, they worked in different units and spoke only by messages.

New Year’s Eve was unforgettable for the couple when they were quarantined in two different rooms and could only look at each other from afar.

“We’ve been together since we were students. We’ve got love and courage from each other, so we’ll strive our best to fight the pandemic,” she said.  VNS 

Frontline doctors recall the three-month fight against COVID-19

Happy and relieved. That’s how Dr Pham Ngoc Thach, director of the Hanoi-based National Hospital of Tropical Diseases, feels after three months on the frontline battling in the war against COVID-19.

Medical workers, frontline soldiers in the fight against COVID-19 epidemic

The Da Nang Hospital for Lung Diseases has recently received and treated patients with fever and, possibly, COVID-19.