He has been living in the RV for the past two weeks, and though he is away from his family.
Anish Samuel, a Dubai-born Indian doctor specialising in pulmonary critical care in the United States, was changing scrubs multiple times a day and eating away from his family to reduce the risk of spreading coronavirus.
Newer challenges cropped up for the doctor – combating Covid-19 from the frontlines – after his wife Jessica Ripnick-Samuel gave birth to their baby daughter Amelia Rose-Samuel three weeks ago.
In a bid to keep his family, including his son and the newborn, fully safe, Dr Samuel has now moved into an RV (Recreational Vehicle) parked outside his home. Thanks to the volunteer group RVs for MDs, a Facebook group that connects health workers, fearful of spreading Covid-19 to their loved ones, with camper owners who have a home on wheels to spare.
The group, created on March 25, now has over 30,000 members on its page. Dr Samuel is one such recipient of the volunteer programme. Speaking to Khaleej Times from New Jersey, Dr Samuel said he was born in Sheikh Rashid Hospital in Dubai and grew up in the Satwa neighbourhood. He moved to the United States to pursue his MD after completing his MBBS at the Thiruvananthapuram Medical College in Kerala.
Currently, he is pursuing his fellowship in paulmonology and critical care at the St Joseph’s University Medical Centre in New Jersey. Dr Samuel works from 7am to 7pm, and every fourth or fifth day a week, he does a 24-hour shift at the hospital. “We work five to six days a week, depending on the services,” he said. As of April 15, the hospital has seen at least 1,000 Covid-19 patients.
“Initially, it wasn’t a big deal. We were observing the trends in Italy and gearing up for cases in the US. However, we did not predict it would be this bad,” he said. Following the spike in cases, US hospitals also suffered a shortage of PPE (Personal Protection Equipment). Dr Samuel explained: “We had to adapt. Friends and family were donating masks used for industrial purposes.”
He said: “My wife is a bit of a germ freak. She made a station for me in the garage, and I changed there before I went into my home. I went to work in a pair of scrubs, had another pair in my bag, and changed my work shoes in the car. I only entered the house through the garage. Once, I changed my clothes, I would head straight to the shower.” Like many medical professionals, Dr Samuel also took to sleeping in a different room.
Matters got trickier for the doctor once his baby was born. With his in-laws moving in, he had to find a safer alternative. “The hospital had offered accommodation in association with the Hilton Group with $25 in food allowances,” he said. Since that would mean more distance from his family, the RVs for MDs initiative came as a saving grace.
“My wife found the group on Facebook and RV rentals take anything between $150 and $300 per day, usually. I luckily matched up with RV owner Edward Lau and he dropped it off on my driveway and set up the whole thing for me,” said Dr Samuel. He has been living in the RV for the past two weeks, and though he is away from his family, he can still see and interact with them from a safe distance.
“My son has a habit of running up to me, expecting me to lift him and throw him up into the air. I’ve not been able to do any of that. I still have some meals with them, but I sit away from them,” he said. The family hopes things would return to normal soon.
