Bearing witness to a pandemic BUPA | SANITAS
MADRID — SPAIN
I think my mood changed. To start with, I didn’t even have time to think. There were so many calls, and I spent so many hours at the computer there wasn’t time for thinking.
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At times, it all seemed like a maze. So, for example, a family had to send an older couple in an ambulance and couldn’t go with them. To start with, we and the family would know which hospital they were going to, but sometimes we lost track of them. We didn’t even know if there would be a bed for them when the ambulance got to the hospital. The family would ask: Please, write down our phone number and call us when you know what is happening. The families knew that once their sick relatives had been taken away in the ambulance, they might not see them again. There was a lot of uncertainty. The ambulance driver might say: I am taking your father to such and such a hospital. But you wouldn’t know how long the person might be there for or how it would be, or whether they would be put on a ventilator, or taken to another hospital. At the beginning, that was happening to hundreds and thousands of people. It was really difficult. The families had so many questions about their relative: Will they be on their own? Will they need anything? Will they suffer? Will everything be taken care of? Will someone look after their needs? And all of this was being done by phone call. Little by little, things got more organised, and they started centralising coronavirus admissions, which made it quicker and easier to locate people. To be honest, it was a feeling of complete helplessness, being on the computer at home, knowing that there were never enough staff. And it took longer to support people and help them by phone. We were getting a total of eight or ten thousand calls a day. Mostly, people were really understanding, just scared, but there were some people who were really angry. At the end of the day, it was a really unprecedented situation. I think my mood changed. To start with, I didn’t even have time to think. There were so many calls, and I spent so many hours at the computer there wasn’t time for thinking. I had to quarantine at my parents’ house recently and then I had some more time. Then we had a month and a half or two months when the volume of work was more or less normal, for that time of year, then at the start of July it was increasing, and got worse again. The fear came back, there were more cases again, but they were milder and less people needed to go to hospital, but there were still sick people. Now, in mid-August, cases and calls are rising again. More people are getting symptoms. Since life has gone back to “normal” cases are on the increase and that shows in the volume of work.
I still need the help of my elderly parents. If my daughter picks it up at nursery, it would probably not be serious for her, but it would be for my parents. So I am worried too. Because children share everything. They pick things up and put them in their mouths. It is difficult to keep them apart. How can you make sure they don’t swap dummies, which is something so simple? As a nurse, I have worked for many years in hospitals and A&E and you will see someone coming through the door and pick up how they are. That’s the experience we have. I feel my work has been important because I have contributed to our emergency hospital services not collapsing.�
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