AFP/File / Gabriel BOUYS
Maxime Mbanda played his part for his country at the World Cup in Japan
Italian international Maxime Mbanda has leapt from the
back row on the rugby pitch to the front line in the fight against the
coronavirus, becoming a volunteer ambulance driver in Parma, and bears
witness to a frightening reality on the pandemic.
Last Saturday,
Mbanda was scheduled to face England in front of 60,000 people in Rome
for his 21st Italian cap, but that match, like so many others, has been
postponed.
Instead, wearing a mask and protective suit, he went out
again as an ambulance driver with other volunteers from the Yellow Cross
in Parma, in Emilia-Romagna, one of the areas most affected by the
coronavirus.
By Saturday, almost 800 more people in Italy had died from the disease, taking the total in the country to 4,825.
"When
everything was cancelled in rugby, I wondered how I could help, even
without medical expertise," Mbanda, who plays for Zebre Rugby, the Parma
club, told AFP.
"I found the Yellow Cross, which had a transport service for medicine and food for the elderly."
After
one day delivering masks, food and prescriptions, the physical strength
of the 26-year-old forward was put to good use where it was most
needed, "on the front line, at the heart of the problem".
"I
found myself transferring positive patients from one local hospital to
another. I help with the stretcher or if there are patients to be
carried from a wheelchair. I also hold the oxygen," he explains.
- 'On the front line' -
AFP/File / ANDREAS SOLARO
Mbanda has joined a service that transports patients who have coronavirus
It is a situation of desperate urgency, where, he says,
"95 per cent of hospital facilities are dedicated to coronavirus
patients".
"If people saw what I see in the hospitals, there wouldn't be a queue in front of the supermarkets anymore," he said.
"They would think two, three or four times before leaving home, even to go running."
"What
I see are people of all ages, on respirators, on oxygen, doctors and
nurses on 20- or 22-hour shifts, not sleeping one minute of the day and
just trying to get some rest the next day," he adds.
"I wish I could say that the situation here has reached its limit. But I'm afraid I have to say that's not the case."
Mbanda
has no medical experience, but he is working with the support of his
girlfriend and his father, a surgeon in Milan, "also on the front line."
- "I'll keep going" -
Mbanda has had to become a psychologist in contact with patients put in wards "where death is the order of the day".
"When
you see the look in their eyes... Even if they can't speak, they
communicate with the eyes and they tell you things you can't imagine,"
he said.
"They hear the alarms, the doctors and nurses running from one ward to the next.
"The
first person I collected from the hospital told me that he had been
there for three hours when the neighbour in the next bed died. And
during the night, two other women died in his room. He had never seen
anyone die."
You have to treat these patients "as if they were relatives or friends," he said.
"But
the terrible thing is that every time you touch them, a simple caress
in the ambulance to comfort them, you must immediately disinfect your
hands."
"I started eight days ago, without a day's break and with
shifts of 12 or 13 hours. But faced with what I see in the infectious
disease rooms, I tell myself that I can't be tired," he says.
He believes others could also help.
AFP/File / Filippo MONTEFORTE
Maxime Mbanda, being tackled by Namibia's Chad Plato at the World Cup, is accustomed to a battle
"Fear is normal. But there are little things that can be
done safely that would give those on the front lines a half-hour or an
hour's rest. For them, an hour is crucial," he said.
Accustomed, as an Italian international, to tackling stronger opponents, Mbanda said he won't give up.
"As long as I'm strong, I'll keep going. I'm here and I'm
staying here. As long as there's an emergency, I'm here and I'm staying
here."
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