Imtiaz Sooliman – COVID19 Pandemic Gift of the Givers’ COVID19 response

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?