"[The portal's] main goal is to assist healthcare institution personnel departments in finding new people. There was not common system, where people would be together," vaab.ee creator Maret Martsepp told ETV's current affairs show "Ringvaade" on Wednesday.

"Through vaab, we are looking for volunteers with the respective education and experience who will volunteer and an organization can make calls through us where they describe who they are looking for and for what time and we will forward the call to volunteers so they could react," Martsepp continued.

By now, more than 1,800 people have joined the portal. "In addition to healthcare specialists, we also have mental health specialists, totalling 1,800 people," Martsepp said.

One of the volunteers is Kristiina Vaas, whonormally works in the ambulance service and as a nurse in telemedicine. She is still looking for ways to be useful, however.

"I am a passionate medic, I do not know anything else and do not want to know. Since you can get no clinical practice in the current jobs, the pandemic is suitable to look for other posts aside from your regular one," Vaas said.

As a volunteer, Vaas often has to work with new people in quite tense situations. "Emotions run high in those situations and my own fuse has run shorter, but you have to take a few breaths and continue working," she noted.

Healthcare workers are naturally burned out. "This month has been living in luxury, I have had five days off," Vaas joked. "I have experienced burning out repeatedly. I have found the sauna a very appreciable way to unwind. I go to the sauna, listen to low-quality Russian pop music and blow off steam."

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