Diana Barreiro is a nurse from Noia (A Coruña) who has been working at the Hospital de la Princesa (Madrid) for five years. She has 34 years –14 of professional experience– and it is enough to listen to her for a few minutes to appreciate the waste of effort and enthusiasm with which she faces her work. On July 24, 2013, he was on duty at the Hospital de Santiago de Compostela. “The Alvia accident was very hard,” he says. “But not as much as the coronavirus crisis. Not even close.”
Between March and April she has come to work 27 days in a row because she preferred to be in the hospital than to stay home alone thinking about what her colleagues were experiencing. During all this time has cared for many people, has seen many people die and has cried a lot. Very much. At times he has worked without protective equipment and has had to reuse an FFP2 mask much longer than is advisable. But it has not been infected. This is his story.
It wasn’t a flu
“I heard about the Wuhan coronavirus at the end of December and at the beginning, like everyone else, I did not give it importance, but seeing that infections were growing in Italy and that borders were not closed or quarantines were activated, as had been done with the returnees from China, there I already thought there was going to be a problem. “
“I did not go to the March 8 demonstration. There were already patients with coronavirus in the hospital and that weekend my parents were in Madrid. I told them it was better to avoid crowds and closed places.”
“A colleague had finished his contract and two days later he was called to work in a plant with coronavirus. He was the first to told me that patients suddenly got worse and died. There I understood that reality did not correspond to what they told us about the flu. “
“On March 12 I put on my first PPE and started to do PCR tests, but they all came back negative. On March 13, we closed the plant and from 16 on we only work with COVID patients.”
The chaos
“They were horribly bad days. It was like entering a battlefield, absolute chaos. I remember total silence in the rooms and in the corridors. It was scary to see that the patients did not talk to each other. I also remember a lady who would not leave I asked her what was wrong and she told me that on TV they had said that all patients with coronavirus were going to die. My companions They told me to leave the room, that I was done. But how could he leave her there alone crying? In the end she calmed down. I asked him to give me a smile, I lowered his mask … and he put it on me! That made my day a bit. But how do you comfort them? You can’t promise them that they won’t die. “
“One day I went down to the emergency room and saw that the waiting room was full of beds, chairs and armchairs packed together. Not here on the floor. But we did see that, as soon as a patient was discharged, moved or died, Right away they called you from the ER to tell you that another was coming in. They didn’t even have time to clean the bed! “
The hands of Diana Barreiro, nurse at Hospital de la Princesa. / CG CANO
Vocation (despite everything)
“One morning we arrived and the only PPE we had was a suit made with garbage bags. I put on a gown and worked all morning with it. That morning I felt helpless. The Preventive service even told us that I didn’t do it. It is necessary to use an FFP2 mask, that a surgical one was enough. But we have 90-year-old patients taking off their cough mask, that they are not wearing it when you enter or that they cough while they are pricking an analytical “.
“We went in anyway, of course. That same day a patient got sick and I came in alone with a surgical mask and gloves. At that time you don’t think. He was cyanotic. [azul], saturating at 70%, and you just want to save his life. If I put on the PPE, I don’t know what I would have found “…
Death
“His assisted breathing machine had been disconnected, but he only asked me to leave the room so as not to get infected. He called me by my name: ‘Diana, please go!’ But i couldn’t leave. It comes to mind many times. The next day he went to the ICU and told me that when he got out, he would come to say goodbye. But he hasn’t come. “
“Throughout my career I have seen people die. In fact, I worked for a season in Palliative Care. But there you know what they are going for … This has been different. People died who at home were totally independent. And that was bad for me. I didn’t even have time to get home. I would get on the bus and start crying. “
Applause is not enough
“The first day I went out to applaud like crazy. I think I was the one who applauded the most in the neighborhood, but I don’t know if my cries or my applause were heard more.”
“Having your own patients applaud you makes your morale rise and make you want to continue fighting. But the applause that I appreciated the most was those at the beginning and those at the peak of the curve. The latter, no longer. going shopping every day just to go out is not so comforting anymore “.
–Diana Barreiro, at the Hospital de la Princesa. / CG CANO
“Society is not aware of what we have experienced. They should have taught what happened in hospitals or in the Ice Palace. Many people believe that it was not so bad, but what we lived in the hospital had never been experienced and I hope it will not be repeated. the worst personal and professional experience of my life”.
“I hope that this will make people open their eyes. That the political leaders see the lack of a good public health system. But deep down I think they will forget this very quickly. It is my fear.”
Hugs and nightmares
“I’m alone in Madrid. My partner lives 700 kilometers away and my family 650. My father was so worried about me that I didn’t sleep all night. When he called home he tried not to cry. But I didn’t sleep either, and when he did always got I dreamed the same thing: the crowded hospital, patients arriving non-stop... The good thing is that, living alone, I have not been afraid of infecting my family “.
“It was very hard to get home and not have anyone to hug. I could not find comfort. I did not sleep, food did not enter me … In the hospital every day was bad and more and more people died.”
Pride
“I never thought of taking a sick leave. I had to keep working. I couldn’t leave my teammates in the lurch. If I sank inside, I would get up.”
“It took me a while to talk to my classmates. We were all the same. But now, yes, we sat down and talked. One said that she cried in the shower so her family wouldn’t see her … And I’ve seen companions enter the rooms with raincoats at the Amusement Park. That pride! This has brought us together a lot. “
“If I had to face all this alone, and also without being able to vent, I think now I can face anything. It has made me stronger.”
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