Syrian doctor joins the fight against coronavirus in Chicago

Dr Zaher Sahloul has been here before. He has worked in hospitals where medical staff die because they are not protected, where wards are so overloaded with critical patients that the corridors fill with beds, and where doctors have to make decisions about who lives and who dies because they cannot save them all.

He saw it all during his many humanitarian missions to his native Syria, throughout the country’s devastating nine-year civil war. But now, he is going through it all again in his hometown of Chicago on the frontlines of the fight against the coronavirus.

“I never imagined that we would be facing in the US what we've been facing in Syria,” says the Syrian-American, who works as a critical care specialist at two Chicago hospitals. “It’s ironic. These are things we’ve been shouting about for years there, we’re now seeing it at home.”

Syria has often been described as the most dangerous place in the world for medical professionals. The deliberate bombing of hospitals by Syrian and Russian forces has devastated a healthcare system already ruined by years of war.