Dr. Adnan Jasem had every reason to leave war-torn Syria after surviving a bomb blast that broke his legs four years ago and receiving job offers from abroad.
Still, Jasem remained committed to treating the people of his land. It came as no surprise that he was on the front lines when the first cases of coronavirus appeared in northwestern Syria this summer.
On September 6, Jasem began to feel ill. Four days later, the 58-year-old man was dead.
“It’s so tragic,” said Jasem’s cousin, Dr. Ziad Alissa, who lives in Paris.
Alissa called the doctors to take Jasem to a ventilator, but it was too late and she died the next day.
“He took care of so many people and saved so many lives, but we couldn’t save him,” said Alissa, director of the French chapter of the Union of Healthcare and Assistance Organizations (UOSSM)., a group founded by Syrian doctors in 2012 to provide free medical care, equipment and other aids to Syrian hospitals and clinics.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: It is part of a series of ongoing stories remembering people who have died of coronavirus around the world.
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Jasem is the reason why Alissa, who is five years younger, became a doctor.
The two grew up in an agricultural region. Jasem’s father was the first to break away from the family’s long history of growing wheat and cotton and go to college. He returned home to teach.
His father instilled in Jasem a sense of duty to serve your community. Jasem, too, returned after finishing medical school in Damascus, specializing in anesthesia.
He and his wife, a gynecologist, had four children and worked as local doctors in the Deir el-Zour region of eastern Syria, near the border with Iraq.
Syria’s civil war erupted after a revolt inspired by the Arab Spring, which began with peaceful protests in 2011 and turned into an armed rebellion after government repression.
Their lives were constantly threatened: as doctors, they were viewed with suspicion every time a new group (from government forces to Islamic State fighters) took control of an area.
Last year alone, 85 medical centers in northern Syria were attacked, according to UOSSM.
Medical equipment was regularly moved to the hospital basements to protect it from bombing. With the sound of airstrikes flying overhead, hiding briefly in a safe place was a regular part of Jasem’s workday. At times, he cared for fellow doctors who were injured in the blasts.
Syria’s nine-year war has killed about half a million people, injured more than a million, and forced some 5.6 million to flee as refugees, mostly to neighboring countries. Another 6 million of Syria’s pre-war 23 million people are internally displaced.
Jasem and his family were ripped apart several times because of the violence, even when a bomb destroyed his home four years ago when he was reunited with his wife and children in the basement. Both legs broke and he underwent surgeries to walk again.
Jasem received job offers from doctors who had left the country, inviting him to join Turkey and raise a family there.
His cousin said that Jasem’s response was always the same: “If there are no doctors here, who was going to help people?”
The Syrian health system already had problems when the first cases of coronavirus appeared. Jasem has been working since 2017 in the intensive care unit of Al-Bab Hospital, a Turkish-controlled area in northwestern Syria. Turkey supports opposition fighters fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Jasem did his best to teach his co-workers and patients how to protect themselves from the virus, his cousin said, but there was a shortage of masks, gloves, gowns, disinfectant and even soap.
When Jasem came home sick, he told his family not to worry, that he would rest and recover while in his forties. He thought he had already survived so much.
But within days he struggled to breathe and ended up in the same intensive care unit where he had treated numerous patients. He spent only one night there before he died.
“During this war, thousands of doctors left because they couldn’t live there, they couldn’t tolerate life there,” Alissa said. “He did it in spite of everything, in spite of the danger, the fear, the attacks, the bombing. I knew people needed it. This is what made him an extraordinary human being. These doctors are very few ”.
Jasem dreamed of one day opening a hospital in Syria that offered free medical services to everyone. Her family hopes to make this dream come true in her honor.
Jasem’s wife, Dr. Ruba Alsayed, plans to continue working as a doctor in Syria, raising her 14-year-old son on her own. Her 18-year-old son also wants to be a doctor. He plans to study medicine in Europe, but plans to return to his homeland to continue his father’s work.
Jasem inspired so many, said Alissa, that she regularly returns to Syria to offer herself as a doctor.
“He loved his country, he loved his home,” Alissa said. “Most of all, he loved helping his people.”
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Watson reported from San Diego. Associated Press reporter Zeina Karam in Beirut contributed to this report.