Nothing prepares you for this

tamara casado Nurse Care Home Almenara Sanitas

I am a nurse and the supervisor at Almenara Care Home. Before Covid, it was very peaceful here. It was a well-organised home but then we are in a small village, perhaps a bit cut off and with not many visitors coming in and out. We were preparing for the arrival of the virus, and worried about what would happen. At the beginning of March we had 106 residents. Everything changed at the end of the month of March, around 21 March – a couple of patients developed coughs, though they didn’t have a fever. We immediately quarantined them, partly because we didn’t know much about the symptoms of Covid. On 25 March I could see things were getting difficult and decided to take my son, Martin, to stay with my parents. Then it was just me and my partner. At the end of March, almost 80% of the residents were sick and we had to take on new staff because a lot of the staff were off sick. At the beginning, nobody wanted to come and work at the home because of Covid. Around 28 March, almost as if by magic, a whole load of young people from El Salvador in Central America turned up, (I call them my angels), who hadn’t lived in Spain long.

MADRID — SPAIN

When these young people came along we trained them up in care: how to bathe the residents, feed them and look after them. They were quick learners, which was helpful, because we needed all hands on deck to look after the patients so that we could deal with the medical side. We have zones in the home – a Covid zone and a non-Covid zone, even though when we first tested everyone they had in fact all had contact with infected people, except for five people out of the 106 residents. Everything was sectioned off. Staff were not allowed to mix, not even for a break, never. The hardest day was in April, when seven residents died. I especially remember one of them, because he was such a warm person and spent a long time with us, and one morning he told us he had had a bad night and at five past eight in the morning when I looked in on him he was very unwell. I remember how helpless I felt and how I started to cry and asked myself: When will all this end? Residents deteriorated so quickly – one minute they were fine and the next they had gone. People between the ages of 71 and 95 or 96 years old. Yet we have residents of 100 years old who have survived. What is the difference? We still don’t know the answer to that.

For a whole, tough month I couldn’t see my son Martin. During that time he had his first birthday and started walking, all without me there. These things are hard, but that is how it is. Once during that time I went to my parents’ house just to leave them some provisions. I kept my distance and didn’t go in or anything, and he saw me and cried and stretched out his little hands to me. I have had lessons on tropical medicine, where they were talking about major diseases on other continents. But nobody prepares you, either professionally or psychologically, for what we had to go through. It’s not just about healthcare but about what nurses have to suffer when they stand by helpless and watch twenty people die in It is months since I have front of them. The emotional strain is very hard. slept eight hours on the As far as mental health goes, Sanitas has trot. That’s an obvious provided us with guidance. We also have sessions with a psychologist, but until it all passes and we go repercussion, but at the back to normality I don’t think we can really take moment I don’t even really stock of what each of us needs, in psychological terms. We are still going through it. have time to think about it.

MADRID — SPAIN

It is months since I have slept eight hours on the trot. That’s an obvious repercussion, but at the moment I don’t even really have time to think about it. I don’t know how it is in other countries, but in Spain you either suffer or you move on, that’s how it is. Not everyone knows what it’s like to look at rooms full of corpses! It’s the same with the news, they report as if we weren’t doing anything in the care homes. That really hurts. I love the Sanitas homes and I love my work and I have to say, they don’t know what they’re talking about! I haven’t seen my son for over a month. I have missed a whole load of important milestones in his life, yet I get no recognition for it and still have to hear such rubbish on the news! To get back to normal, I think we have to recognise what we have been through in this Covid crisis and I hope that one day they will truly recognise our work, not just in the hospitals but in all the care homes too. �