No time to think

clara gonzález Healthcare Supervisor Sanitas Healthcare Funding I think the company has looked after the health of its customers right from day one. They tell us to make sure every sick person has everything they need, and that we do all we can to meet every need.

I am a nurse and I have worked in health management for seventeen years. That day in March when they said we were going into lockdown I took home the bare minimum. Just my laptop - that’s about it. I remember it was a Thursday. I thought I would be at home for fifteen days but I didn’t go back to the office until 22 June.

Our colleagues in the call centre in Madrid couldn’t manage all the call they were receiving and they asked our team for volunteers to help with the call centre and with video calls. The rest of us took on the work of those who were moved to help with the crisis.

Then the hospitals started to collapse and there weren’t enough beds. We had to move people from one centre to another. The Sanitas Hospital in Barcelona became a Covid specialist centre. We tripled the capacity of this hospital. It was really hard, especially the first days and weeks, until the numbers started to go down.

We had to change the patient list every day. I remember once when a patient wasn’t listed on entries or discharges. It was a patient of my own age who had been in ICU for almost a month. I knew him, he was a widower with a son of the

BARCELONA — SPAIN

same age as my daughter: 17 years old. The worst thing was to think that boy might lose his other parent. Thankfully, that didn’t happen and the man got better.

At the beginning, families found it hard to all be at home 24-hours a day. But I think we have learnt that our lives were really too busy and we didn’t have any time for reflection.

I also found my teenage daughter difficult at the beginning. She was very stressed, but she became calmer, more thoughtful and helpful, which helped our relationship a lot. My husband spent some time furloughed (unemployed but with a right to part of his salary), but thankfully soon went back to work.

Although it has had its good side, I wouldn’t want to go back to lockdown. �