PPE art delivers a smile to Moscow’s COVID individuals

By Maxim Shemetov and Maria Tsvetkova

© Reuters/MAXIM SHEMETOV
Volunteer Leonid Krasner draws cheerful images on his protecting suits to guidance COVID-19 sufferers at a healthcare facility in Moscow

MOSCOW (Reuters) – With medics and helpers protected in masks, healthcare eyeglasses and protective fits, it is often tough to express festive cheer to the individuals on Moscow’s COVID-19 wards.

But Leonid Krasner, who has been volunteering at a healthcare facility considering the fact that the to start with wave, has discovered a way with the vibrant photos he draws on the back of his overalls to assist individuals recognise him and provide a smile to individuals becoming addressed.

© Reuters/MAXIM SHEMETOV
Volunteer Leonid Krasner attracts cheerful images on his protective fits to aid COVID-19 clients at a healthcare facility in Moscow

Krasner, 59, decorates his solitary-use fits before getting into the wards every time he is in the medical center. He once drew a cartoonish aircraft for a unwell pilot and a congratulations card for a mom on Mother’s Working day.

© Reuters/MAXIM SHEMETOV
Volunteer Leonid Krasner draws cheerful photographs on his protecting suits to aid COVID-19 individuals at a healthcare facility in Moscow

“This is to boost your mood and your immune method,” he advised an aged woman with an oxygen mask, charmed by the Xmas tree daubed on his again.

In the course of the outbreak’s next wave, Moscow has registered about 6,000-7,000 new infections every single working day, about a quarter of Russia’s nationwide caseload, and it has had to open up numerous temporary hospitals, such as one particular on an ice rink.

© Reuters/MAXIM SHEMETOV
Volunteer Leonid Krasner draws cheerful photos on his protective suits to guidance COVID-19 patients at a medical center in Moscow

Krasner and some of his fellow volunteers are tasked with hunting soon after the weak people discharged from intensive treatment models to standard wards. They enable them with every single day factors like combing their hair, brushing their enamel and shaving.

A previous businessman, Krasner was a person of dozens of Muscovites with no prior medical knowledge who volunteered to support at coronavirus hospital amount 52 in spring when the outbreak strike the Russian cash.

He ended up catching the virus himself shortly immediately after his initially shifts and it took him two weeks to recover at dwelling before he could get again to his sufferers.

“Even if a human being is in a negative way and is sick, they still require emotions … This cheers people up,” said Krasner exterior a ward where he had been massaging the legs of a recovering client.

(Enhancing by Tom Balmforth and Alison Williams)