LONDON: An experienced surgeon who spent nearly two years working to save patients with coronavirus in the UK succumbed to the virus himself nine weeks after contracting it.
Dr. Irfan Halim, 45, was admitted to the hospital after collapsing during a shift on Sept. 10, according to his family.
During the height of the first wave of the pandemic in 2020, Halim spent four months away from his wife and four young children to protect them while he worked in COVID-19 wards.
He was placed on an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation machine that temporarily replaced the function of his heart and lungs because he could not breathe for himself.
Halim died on Nov. 14 despite having received two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.
“The National Health Service worked frantically to bring Irfan home to his beautiful family, but tragically, he passed away after a nine-week fight against COVID,” according to a fundraising website set up in his memory.
“Irfan was dearly loved and touched so many people’s lives. Sadly, he was taken away far too soon from those who loved him. Not only was he a loving husband, a devoted father of four young beautiful children, but an incredibly awesome human being to all that were blessed to have met him.”
More than GBP83,000 ($111,650) had been donated so far by at least 471 donors to meet the family’s GBP100,000 target.
“He fought hard to be with his children every day,” Halim’s wife said in a social media post.
“With a broken heart shattered in pieces beyond imagination, I muster what little strength I have to write this message. You gave 25 dedicated years of service to the NHS working as a consultant general surgeon. Irfan, you were not only my best friend but a best friend to all our children and so many others.”