Imtiaz Sooliman – COVID19 Pandemic Gift of the Givers’ COVID19 response
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The COVID-19 pandemic has caused major health problems in many countries, leading to a surge in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations. The "will-live" experience that brings people back to their hearts is a government strategy for fighting COVID-19, but the "will-live" experience is not a will-live experience. The "will-live" experience is a "will-live" experience that brings people to their hearts and brings them back to normality.
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Desolate, war torn and disaster struck areas of the world now the
gift of the givers. Foundation is taking on a new, daunting
challenge, covid 19, the disaster response Non Governmental
Organization is celebrating 28th anniversary today. Founder, Doctor
MT joins us now, live to tell us more, Doctor. Suleiman, very good
morning to you. Very
good morning to you. Blaine. MTR, whole team, so almost three
decades, sir, of humanitarian work. Congratulations to you and
your intrepid team. I'm sure it's been 28 years of great sacrifice.
But as you know, the best view comes after the hardest climb.
Oh, most certainly you know what. It's something that you know it's
yes, it's a challenge. The greater the challenge, the better the soul
gets fulfilled. And you find that the teams, whenever they come at
us, whether it's the media teams, whether it's the medical teams?
What is a blanket and 10 teams? Whenever they leave a disaster
spot, they say, this is a life changing experience. They say,
this is a great spiritual experience. They say it's
something that it will give up all the money for to go again and
again, because it does something to your soul. It does something to
your spirit. Yeah. How did this all come about? Doc, from from a
medical doctor to a humanitarian? Describe that transition for us?
Well, for the start, all doctors should be humanitarian, because we
visit a business of saving lives. But it's neat. It didn't start in
a conventional manner. I didn't get up one morning and say, Let's
form an organization, get some board members, write a
constitution, do some funny principles. It never worked like
that. I never had an intention of forming an organization. In August
91 I met a spiritual teacher in Istanbul. It's a long story. I
went back in August 92
and on Thursday the sixth of August 1992
he gives me an instruction. Around 10pm
he says, My son, I'm not asking you, I'm instructing you to form
an organization. The name will be gift of the givers. You will serve
all people of all races, of all cultures, small cultures, of all
classes, of any geographical location and of any political
creation, but you will serve them unconditionally. Will not expect
anything in return, not even a thank you. This is an instruction
for you for the rest of your life, whatever you do is done through
you and not by you.
You know, Doc, as I said in my introduction, your team has
traveled to the most desolate, war torn and disaster struck areas of
the world. And let me take you back to one of your missions I
will never forget, Libya 2011 I accompanied you and your team to
the North African country, together with video journalist
Clive Reid and the late Suna fenta, and we were there to report
at the time when the heart of Libya's rebellion was was beating
a pace. I remember how we were forced to evacuate Libya's eastern
town of Ajdabiya amid threats of fierce fighting there, but still
your medical contingent continued to discharge their duties from
nearby Benghazi. How do you and your team hold your nerve when
faced with with a minefield of challenges, when you don't know
where, exactly where the front line is in terms of the battle,
how do you keep calm in the face of danger? I
Blaine, all credit goes to the team, the team. Whenever we go on
a disaster, dangerous mission, like a war zone, I try to frighten
them as much as possible. I tell them, you can get killed. You can
get wounded. Your family is at home. Please deconsider. Please
don't come. And they all tell you the same thing, we are people of
faith. It doesn't matter which religion you belong to, and even
if you don't have religion, they say we are people. We belong
belief in nature.
We know God, Almighty will protect us wherever we go, in that mission
itself. And remember, I told you, this is a spiritual calling, a
spiritual mission. When we get to a certain area, I kept inspiration
when everybody was running away, I told her, we don't have to run.
We'll work now. The point I told her to move out. Two hours later,
the bombs fell in that area, and when we moved to Benghazi again, I
said, we will work there. A few hours after we left exactly at the
window, standing like a short book of Windows. There's not some
cleverness. I meant. The teacher said, Whatever happens, I'm not
done. IU
you know speaking about keeping calm in the face of danger, the
global coronavirus pandemic has had such a profound impact on all
South Africans.
Is your organization is doing a lot of work on the ground. What
has been your experience? What has been your team's experience with
regard to the fight against coronavirus?
Anxiety? Anxiety has been the biggest challenge in the country.
Remember, before it came to South Africa on March the first the
worldwide media was driving it since December from China, and
then you saw what happened in Italy, in Spain, in France to
Turkey in USD. And the overriding media was about debt, debt, debt.
And that drove tremendous fear, not only in a civilian population,
but a MediCal population that could be used to dealing with
dangerous diseases. But hepatitis came out when HIV came out. Diet
was scared, but they dealt with it. But covid 19 brought a
different mindset. Closed their rooms. Specialists in some
hospitals didn't go to work. Hospitals were sort of 80% closed
because of like great anxiety and people at homes, families are
terrified, and especially when someone passed away from neighbor,
family itself. So we had, we had to deal and non medical people.
Challenge attained was the hunger,
not in our 28th year history. We've never seen that hunger, but
so many also,
you know, Doc, this is such a wily virus. It's been described as the
perfect virus. It's very serious, but it it doesn't kill all of its
hosts, so it can survive. It's highly contagious, and it causes
multiple organ problems in certain individuals. What do you make of
government strategy for fighting this disease?
To be fair to government, on the one side, is nobody knows how to
deal with this virus. We don't have any experience. You've seen
first world countries, what it's done to America, the number one
economy in the world, but all the technology, all the machines, the
best health system in the world, what it has done to them. In South
Africa, we have a problem, an economic crisis in covid 19 came.
Our health systems were not ready and are still not ready,
and you find that we had a shortage of medical personnel.
There's a problem the government could have fixed at first, because
when you said you during lockdown, a lockdown was to prepare the
health system, but we failed to put it bluntly, miserably when you
came to preparing, providing additional staff in terms of
healthcare workers and nurses and backup support, and that's why you
see the skepticism. You're seeing the stairways. You're seeing the
big failure. The second big failure was, you know, PPE, yeah,
if you don't have
to see the patients, you can have all the equipment, all those first
world service but if you don't have healthcare workers who's
going to see the patient and a big announcement, each one set up, and
there's enough PPEs and so much what to the country? Yes, may be
brought into the country, but did they get to
the people who need it most? And the answer is
180
health system
every time you come with PPEs, or even at home,
doctors, the nurses, the CEO start.
Why would professional people start dancing? It
means they ever received it.
So PPE is very, very important in the fight against covid 19. We
need to protect our frontline workers with regards to this
disease, we need to box in this virus. How do we do that?
Effectively? Strategic testing. That's just one part of it. From
your knowledge. Talk to us about the tests. Doc, currently being
used. I
Blaine, in terms of testing, I think the virus is already Outcast
us. It's one. We get the results after 10 or 12 days. You saw in St
Augustine's Hospital in Durban, one guy infected, 135
people.
Can imagine 10,000 people we're given the results 10 days later.
How many people are you going to are you going to trace? Pacing is
over? We always say our time there's no point. You'd rather
wait save lives, yeah, because those who are sick but come to
hospital this way, you should be ready for them. Yeah, you don't
have to go to them.
So you need healthcare. Professionals are getting burnt
out. They're dying. They're getting ill. They're getting
knocked out again. The emphasis it sounds like a cliche or a foreign
word. Now, hospitals medical staff need the best PPE of quality, of
unrestricted quantity, not only in emergency department.
But across all disciplines, pediatrics, Gynecology,
obstetrics, surgery, orthopedics, ophthalmology, ENT, because you
don't know where the virus is coming. Yeah, and PPE is not only
for doctors and nurses. It's for a coffee lady, for the tea guy,
water feeder, because anyone can spread it. Secondly, you need to
do PCR testing. About testing, we do PCR testing machines that can
be a result in 45 you can test healthcare workers, and you can
test high specifications immediately so they don't jam the
beds up in hospital. Yeah, you're not sure they covid 19 or not.
We're using this very successfully in varag Hospital. And the third
thing is
OXImeters, simple device can tell you the oxygen level in a patient,
whether it's critical or not. It's critical, all you do is provide
high flow oxygen machines and pulling out many of those, and you
just need to configure
oxygen to some of the configure that so many Yeah, coming to you
now, so many metrics, so many variables in the fight against
covid. 19. Humanitarian work entails helping people without
discrimination, being conscious of their needs. And I guess the
question we all have to ask ourselves, especially during this
time. Doc, is what are you doing for others? Doctor. MDS, Aleman,
keep on. Keeping on, sir, once again, happy 28th anniversary to
the gift of the givers. Blessings to you and the family. Good health
during this difficult time. Thank you.
Amen, and thank you. Alright. MTS, founder of the gift of the givers
Foundation, talking to us about the need for proper personal
protective equipment for the frontline workers so that they can
keep on keeping on. With regards to the fight against covid 19,
what are the numbers so far? We give you the numbers every day,
but we can't get numb to these numbers. This is what the other
fear of the fear of fatigue, the fear of forbearance in this fight
against covid, 19, something that the doc also touched on as well.
So the numbers confirmed cases so far, 529,877
cumulative cases. The good news is that the recovery rate, as we have
it from the department, is creeping up at 70% over 70% now.
So that's the good news. In terms of, you know, the recovery. People
are recovering from this, the active cases are going down. Which
is good, which is good. But the President also talking about
certain provinces that seems to be stabilizing. The caveat is that it
might be too soon to get very happy about this, because things
can change. What about the second wave that people are talking but
not only here in South Africa, but around the world? That's the
worry. If we stop doing what we're doing now, in terms of the three
W's, wearing a mask, watching your space, washing your hands, then we
might run the risk of it exponentially rising again, so
that's that's a concern as well. All right?