A growing group of politicians, artists and athletes are returning to their medical roots to assist the health care system which is overstrained due to the ever increasing demand brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Leo Varadkar, Ireland’s taoiseach
The prime minister of Ireland has offered to work one day of the week as a doctor as the country braces for a surge in the number of infections. Varadkar, 41, worked as a junior doctor in Dublin and qualified as a GP in 2010 before he quit medicine to become a full-time politician.
“Many of his family and friends are working in the health service. He wanted to help out even in a small way,”
Stated a spokesperson.
Thomas Lilti, French Film Director
Thomas Lilti, 43, a film director, was filming the French medical TV drama Hippocrate in a hospital when the pandemic hit. He suspended filming and a few days later started work as a doctor – a profession he had left behind in 2014 – in the same hospital.
“I volunteered in casualty to try and help in a small way so the more competent doctors, those who really know what they are doing, can have a rest even if just for a few hours,”
he told Le Journal du Dimanche .
French Athletes and sportsmen
28 year old Stéphanie dos Santos, a basketball player has returned to the medical field to work as a nurse. Julien Mathieu, a ju-jitsu champion, is also working as a nurse during the pandemic. 31 year old Rugby referee, Thomas Carabas, has returned to work at Bayonne hospital.
Katalin Cseh, Member of European Parliament
31 year old Katalin Cseh, who is an MEP for Hungary’s opposition Momentum party, returned from Brussels to Budapest and started her first shift as a volunteer medic on Tuesday. Cseh plans to work part-time and unpaid while continuing to serve as an MEP.
Other politicians who are returning to the medical field
- In France, 34 year old Thomas Mesnier, an MP for the governing La République en Marche, has returned to hospital work.
- Caroline Fiat, 43, an MP for La France Insoumise, has returned to work as a nurse.
- Bernard Jomier, 56, a Socialist party senator, and Véronique Guillotin, 57, a Radical Movement senator, have returned to the medical profession as doctors.
- In Northern Ireland, 42 year old Kathryn Owen, a Democratic Unionist party (DUP) councillor, will resume working as a nurse this week at a hospital site that treats Covid-19 patients.
- 68 year old John Kyle, a Progressive Unionist party (PUP) councillor, has come out of retirement as a GP despite his age, which puts him in the at risk group.