As her husband fights on the coronavirus front lines, Iman Al Bayati is doing her part to hold their family together during these unprecedented times.
Amid the coronavirus pandemic, families across Australia have experienced changes to their daily lives, especially those with young children or members working on the hospital front lines.
This Iraqi refugee family has both.
Hussein Al Abbasi is an emergency doctor at Central Coast Hospital, in NSW.
While he works in the fight against coronavirus, his wife Iman Al Bayati takes care of their four-year-old daughter Tiema and also runs the family home in Sydney, an hour’s drive from the Central Coast.
It is Ms Al Bayati who gets credit from her husband as the “hero” who navigates the family’s way through the crisis.
Mr Al Abbasi arrived in Australia as a refugee with his wife in 2014. He was a qualified doctor in Iraq but had to study for another two years before being certified in Australia.
“It was a very hard time, for two years, the whole family’s focus was to finish this phase,” she said.
In 2016, he got his first job in Australia at Central Coast Hospital, which forced the family to relocate from Melbourne to Sydney.
