A brave heart falls silent

"We are working in hospital. You stay at home. May Allah help us," wrote Dr Moyeen Uddin of Sylhet MAG Osmani Medical College on Facebook on March 23.

The physician kept his words. He continued working in the hospital, treating Covid-19 patients.

But it is while discharging his professional duties that the frontline fighter himself was infected with the deadly virus.

He eventually lost the battle and passed away on Wednesday morning.

The assistant professor of the medicine department at Sylhet MAG Osmani Medical College is the country's first doctor who died from coronavirus.

Dr Moyeen worked in the hospital amid many challenges. He had to treat patients without personal protective equipment.

At one point, he decided to buy personal protective equipment himself for personal use as well as for junior colleagues.

He discussed this with someone he knows on Facebook, enquiring about the place he could buy personal protective equipment from.

The doctor told that person he was not seeing patients in his chamber because the place was so congested that it was not possible for him to maintain the social distance required for protection from coronavirus.

Even though he did not have personal protective equipment, he did not stop treating patients.

Dr Moyeen first showed Covid-19 symptoms on the last day of March, and immediately self-isolated himself at home.

As the symptoms got intense during home-quarantine, he took a coronavirus test on April 4. The report came the following day and it was positive.

He was still receiving home treatment at the time.

But on April 7, his condition deteriorated, and he was admitted to Sylhet Shahid Shamsuddin Ahmed Hospital's isolation centre.

His condition did not improve there, and it was necessary to bring him to Dhaka because there is no intensive care unit for Covid-19 patients in Sylhet.

But it was not easy to come to Dhaka for better treatment. He texted officials concerned to arrange an air ambulance, but it was not available.

No government hospital ambulance having intensive care unit facilities was available either.

He was eventually brought to Dhaka by such an ambulance of a private hospital.

Dr Moyeen was admitted to Kurmitola General Hospital on April 8, where he had been on life support since 12th.

He was not only a good doctor but also a compassionate person. Every Friday or during government holidays, he would go to his hometown in the north-western upazila of Chhatak to treat poor and impoverished patients for free.  

He also arranged free medical camps in his hometown on many occasions.   

Local homeopath Askir Miah said Dr Moyeen would also give poor patients free medicine.   

Sohel Ahmed, a senior in the locality, said Dr Moyeen was not only the physician of the poor.  

"He would also refuse to take fees from local patients who would go to his chamber in Sylhet," he said.

"He would display such good demeanour that patients would already be half-cured upon meeting him," added Sohel.  

Condolences poured in on social media following Dr Moyeen's death, with people writing on Facebook what a great human being he was.  

Hours after his demise, Associate Professor of Rangpur Medical College Dr Ridoy Ranjan Roy wrote on Facebook Dr Moyeen was one of the top scorers in the secondary and higher secondary tests.

"He was also near the top of the merit lists at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, the University of Dhaka, and Dhaka Medical College. But it was his intense interest in serving humanity that finally took him to Dhaka Medical College," he wrote.

Dr Ridoy wrote that Dr Moyeen worked hard and earned the degrees – first Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS), then the Fellow of College of Physicians and Surgeons (FCPS) and finally the Doctor of Medicine (MD).  

He described Dr Moyeen as a field marshal of sound health who had jumped into the battle against the invisible coronavirus enemy without sword and shield.