Meet the doctor who has not taken a single day off since he started caring for dying Covid patients — 272 days ago.
A doctor who found fame from a photo viral of him comforting an elderly coronavirus patient, has not taken a single day off since March 19th.
Dr Joseph Varon, 58, averages only three hours sleep per night since he started working through the pandemic in March.
He works in the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit in the United Memorial Medical Centre (UMCC) in Houston, Texas.
Dr Varon said: “I haven’t taken a single day off, because I have to take care of these patients- if I don’t, nobody else will!
“My wife says that I’m not superman and that I should take it easy, she’s concerned I’m going to have a stroke or heart attack or something!
“When I came home after my first shift on the COVID unit, I was outside my house and my wife called out to me to take off all my clothes!
“I thought ‘Wow, I’m going to get lucky!’
“But then she threw out a black trash bag and told me to put my clothes in there, go and wash them, and then go and have a shower, and then I could say hi to her!”
The hero doctor says his only sacrifice has been not being able to travel with his wife of 34 years, Sara Varon, 55, but he would not flout the rules that he is asking others to follow.
On November 26, the day the viral photo was taken of him comforting an elderly coronavirus patient, Joseph’s only thoughts were on his work.
He said: “I’ve been very open with the media because I think it’s important that people realise what’s going on in COVID units.
“That day I had a photographer following me around who had been in my unit before, Go Nakamura, and he doesn’t interfere when I’m working, I almost don’t know he’s there.
“As I’m walking through the hallway I suddenly see one of my patients in his room, disconnected from all the monitors, and crying like a baby like there’s no tomorrow!
“He’s 78 years of age, and he feels very, very sad, but I didn’t know at that stage if it was because of pain.
“I get close, completely forgetting that Mr Nakamura is behind me, and the patient tells me he wants to be with his wife.
“It’s Thanksgiving day, so he wants to be with his family and is feeling lonely, I think anybody with a bit of emotion would hold him and let him relax.
“I didn’t even remember that he had COVID.
“He’s crying in my arms and I don’t realise that Mr Nakamura is behind me taking pictures- and the next thing I know I’m getting calls from all over the world, because he’d uploaded it that same day!
“I don’t particularly care about the fame now, I’ve been in the media too much, and people recognise that we are doctors who work hard but still have emotions!”
Since the photo went viral, Dr Varon has been battling international media requests alongside the virus, at all hours of the day!
He said: “I get about three hours sleep a night, and I have learnt to do that over many years.
“Last night I got home at 1am and went to bed right away, but in the first 15 minutes I get phone calls from across the world!
“I can have a full dream, from beginning to end, in 15 minutes – it’s supposed to take 45 minutes to get into the sleep state where you can have a dream!
“I can hang up the phone, turn over, and continue the dream I started before the phone call.
“A sleep specialist could write a thesis on my sleep pattern!”
Joseph and his team have been finding ways to keep themselves going, and recently made their own music video! [healthcareworkersrock.org]
“We look at ways to keep ourselves happy, because you have to!” he said.
“We have a fantastic success rate, our patients have been doing very well, and whilst I do this day-in day-out I don’t think that makes me different.
“I know I am exhausted, but I also know that with Christmas approaching and being in the middle of a second wave, a break is not going to happen soon.
Staff at his hospital began to notice the damaging psychological effects on patients of the doctors’ extensive PPE covering their face, so Joseph told staff to wear a large photograph of their face around their necks so they could be more easily recognised.
Varon feels that overcoming the widespread disbelief of safeguards like masks and social distancing is the biggest challenge of the pandemic and the root of recurring waves and spikes in infections.
He said “We don’t have a unified message here in the US, and when there are mixed messages about severity, you are going to believe who tells you the least painful news.”
Joseph said that about three months ago there was a hospital security guard who denied the existence of coronavirus, and walked around without a mask.
The man eventually caught the virus and was hospitalized in Joseph’s unit.
The doctor recalled: “He got COVID, and thought it was all being staged!”
The patient demanded to be shown documentation that proved he had COVID-19, and then maintained that they were fake.
“He never believed it was real, and kept saying it was his asthma.”
The patient died a few days later.
But Dr Varon does not just see problems with the attitudes of the public, with even many medical experts showing reluctance to deal with coronavirus patients.
He said: “COVID patients are seen as second class citizens, a lot of doctors and nurses don’t want to deal with that kind of patient- it’s being treated like the HIV pandemic.
“There’s always concerns that your own health will be impacted, and also financially because we work in a large and underserved area so we don’t always get paid fairly for treating all these patients.
“Doctors are saying no to consultations- only those of us who truly have a passion are able to work on it.
“I call myself a ‘Covidologist’ because I have to do everything, every specialty you can imagine!”
Texas has more than 1.3 million confirmed cases and over 23,000 deaths due to the virus since the start of the pandemic, and hospitals like the UMCC are becoming overwhelmed.
On December 14, the US began rolling out the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine across the country to healthcare workers and care home residents, but this is still not given Dr Varon much hope.
He said: “I am still concerned because members of different communities believe different things, like it will make them sterile or implant them with a microchip from Donald Trump!
“I always say I am fighting two wars; one against COVID and another against stupidity!
“We need to educate everyone in the basics and that is the only way we will come out of this.”