Maxime vows to ignore fear in fight against virus
ITALY flanker Maxime Mbanda has vowed to push through the fear and keep driving ambulances carrying coronavirus patients to and from hospital.
The Zebre back-row forward is volunteering for Italy’s Yellow Cross charity, driving Covid-19 patients to hospital in emergencies, or transferring patients from one medical centre to another.
The 27-year-old admitted he does fear for his own health, but has pledged to keep on volunteering for the duration of the pandemic.
Wearing protective clothing from head to foot, Mbanda admitted patients desperately gasping for breath can only communicate their fears through their eyes.
“I can tell you that I’m scared, because every time you step into an infected department in the hospital you know that the enemy is in the air, it’s on everything you can touch,” Mbanda said.
“The enemy is invisible. You can’t see it.
“But I know I’m doing a good thing, in my little work, because with all respect to doctors and nurses my work is very little, but I’m trying to help as many people as possible.
“So I’ll keep on going until this emergency is over.
“It’s difficult but I’m trying to do my best. I don’t have a medicine degree or a nurse’s degree, but I’m trying to do my best.
“I’m helping transfer patients between hospitals, to help nurses to create space.
“The patients are scared, even when you transfer them from one hospital to another. Even if they don’t speak because they have oxygen masks on, with their eyes they can talk to you. They can tell you that they are scared with their eyes. You have to try to take care of them like you would for parents or family. You have to hold their hand. The worst fact is after every time you touch them you have to sanitise your hands, because you know they are Covid-19 positive.
“I’m healthy now, and as long as I’m healthy I will keep helping as much as possible.
“I’ve received a lot of messages from my team-mates, coaching staff, my president, saying how proud they are.
“They know the risk but they know what I’m doing and they understand why I’m doing it.”
The 20-cap loose-forward is volunteering across the Parma area, while his father is a surgeon working in Milan.
“Hospitals are full so we are trying to find a balance to let them work in a better situation,” said Mbanda. “Every day you see a different situation, you talk with different people, people who are in hospitals for a lot of days.
“In the hospital they are exposed to a lot of things, patients dying, emergencies, doctors and nurses are running from one room to another to save people.
“I think doctors and nurses are understanding the messages of support from the people outside.
“But the people must know that they have to stay at home, to let the nurses and doctors work as freely as possible.”