‘It was like Armageddon. Empty streets with nothing going on but ambulance sirens.’

In the lead-up to Budget we’re meeting one extended family-and-friends group profoundly affected by COVID-19. Today, brain surgeon Thomas Oxley recounts his own brush with the virus.

Dr Thomas Oxley, an interventional neurologist with the Mount Sinai Health System who hails from Melbourne has battled coronavirus on the home and work fronts.

THOMAS Oxley got COVID-19 back in March, and since then has spent his

days in New York Intensive Care Units, helping people survive the deadly

virus. The Melbourne-raised brain surgeon has called New York home for the

last five years, and two weeks before he fell ill, was with friends in Tahoe,

California.

“I came back to New York and a few friends came over, and they were sick

too,” the renowned neurointerventionist at New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital

told The Australian.

“The next night I got a fever and was laid out with flu-like symptoms for about

a week.

“Then on day seven I was starting to feel a bit better and got up to make some

breakfast, and I could literally taste nothing.

“It was like I was eating cardboard — it was the strangest feeling. I had no sense of smell for a few weeks, but apart from that I was fine.”

The 39-year-old, who lives with his partner Stephanie, said a number of his

colleagues at Mount Sinai had died from the illness.

“I got it quite early on and we hadn’t had the first-hand doctor exposure of

seeing dying people with it, so I wasn’t that scared as otherwise my health is

pretty good,” Dr Oxley said.

“But over the next few months, seeing people get so sick, I felt quite lucky —

and the hospital staff members who had their own health problems were

exposed to it, and that was terrifying.

“Colleagues, quite young colleagues, would get sick, go home and die. We had about 20 per cent of people getting sick, and nurses with medical

problems go home and it was terrifying not knowing if they would pull

through.”

He said a real challenge during the outbreak peak was medical staff being put

into roles they didn’t normally do — for him, that was in the hospital’s Intensive

Care Unit.

“I perform intravenous brain procedures, going into the brain through blood

vessels, but I was pulled into ICU to perform that role, so that was

challenging,” he said.

“We were in lockdown over the summer and it was extremely hot, stuck in the

apartment, but all things considered, the lockdown was nothing compared to

when people got sick.

“It was like Armageddon — the empty streets, with nothing going on but

ambulance sirens every minute of the day.

“I miss my family a lot and we thought a lot about coming back to Australia,

but to be honest, seeing the draconian laws in Melbourne isn’t very attractive.

“I am lucky enough to keep my job, and the city is starting to wake up now.

“There is still no inside dining but there is outside dining so the footpaths have

been taken over by tables and chairs and there are a lot of people outside.

“It is the shoulder of summer now, so it’s really beautiful and the vibe is good.”