They are already almost six months under enormous emotional pressure. Health professionals in Brazil feel exhausted, exhausted, after half a year of battle against the coronavirus. About 260,000 have been infected and at least 226 have given their lives for this crisis.
The pandemic has also taken its toll on them, especially psychologically. Through their eyes they have seen many of the 112,000 deceased and treated the more than 3.5 million infected that COVID-19 leaves in the country so far.
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“We are in a phase in which we are very tired, physically and emotionally exhausted, like the majority of the population,” the physiotherapist Graziela Domingues, who works at the Emílio Ribas Hospital, in Sao Paulo, a reference in Brazil in the treatment of infectious diseases.
Despite the latest signs of stabilization that already put the contagion rate below one, medical personnel remain cautious and hopefully await the arrival of the vaccine, which they are even testing on their own skin through clinical trials.
Although there are wounds that will take time to heal, such as the anxiety of the first days of facing an unknown virus, the desperation of families in search of information and the deep void left by the loss of colleagues with whom they worked side by side.
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Everyone knew María Aparecida Duarte as “Cidinha”. She had been on the front lines for 15 years as a nursing assistant in an outpatient clinic in the municipality of Carapicuíba, in the metropolitan area of Sao Paulo.
She was 63 years old, hypertensive, diabetic and also “the backbone of the family,” recalls her daughter Andreza Reina.
In mid-April, when the country began to report between 1,000 and 3,000 daily cases of coronavirus, it began to feel bad.
They went to primary care and diagnosed him with the flu. She was out for two weeks, but then she rejoined, despite being a risk group, for fear of being fired, according to Andreza.
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He had to cover a guard and from then on it started to get worse. After a few days he could no longer get out of bed. She was admitted to a hospital, but her health condition rapidly deteriorated and she was transferred to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
“During that period, he could no longer speak or open his eyes,” says his daughter. The last time she saw her mother was in the observation room, while the intensive care bed was being prepared.
“I held his hand and told him I was not going to leave. My mother secured mine and it was as if she was saying goodbye ”, she completes.
Shortly after, with his mother still in the ICU, Andreza, 34, and his brother, Alexandre Silva, 39, were admitted to another clinic, also with COVID-19.
“Two days after I left, my mother passed away and my brother was still in the hospital,” Andreza recalls.
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For her and her family there was “negligence” on the part of the authorities. They claim that “Cidinha” came to work with a tissue mask that she commissioned herself. “They put my mother in the front line and did not give her equipment. It’s as if she went to the Army and they didn’t give her armor ”, she criticizes.
His demand, unfortunately, has been repeated in other hospitals in the country since last February 26 the Ministry of Health reported the first case in the country.
“Brazil had serious difficulties in the first 45-60 days” of the pandemic to “generally supply” protection equipment to professionals, Dr. Walkirio Almeida, coordinator of the Council’s COVID-19 crisis committee, explains to Efe. Federal Nursing (Cofen).
In the first four weeks of the emergency, the entity received, according to Almeida, about 1,000 complaints per week from nurses who warned that they were not having access to these equipment.
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And the fight continues. The ICU of the Emílio Ribas hospital continues to be full of patients with COVID-19. 95% of the beds are occupied. There are cases of all ages, from 16 to 77 years. On Thursday an 18-year-old died.
This public hospital specialized in epidemics was prepared from the beginning for the arrival of the virus and will continue to focus on patients suffering from COVID-19 until the end of the crisis so that the rest of the centers in Sao Paulo can recover their routine.
Iván França, a 48-year-old infectologist, works here. It recognizes that “there is psychological and physical exhaustion”, but stresses that “everyone is aware of their commitments and their obligation to public health.”
“We do not let the mood drop within the team,” he assures Efe.
Of the 1,660 hospital workers, there have been 134 infections to date, three of them, a doctor and two nursing assistants, died. Ivan treated one of the victims. That loss was a severe blow to him.
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“At the beginning we did not imagine that this disease was going to have this complexity, this magnitude. We believed it was going to be a simpler thing, ”says Dr. Luiz Carlos Pereira Júnior, director of the Emílio Ribas Hospital.
The silence is sepulchral in the ICU, only broken by the beeps of the monitors and the traffic of doctors and nurses. In a corner, Marco Antonio Elías, 42, prays before starting his turn. “It is a disease that affects people and has the ability to affect the team itself,” says this intensivist.
Graziela Domingues, supervisor of the rehabilitation area of Emílio Ribas, fundamental in the front line, since they help patients “to breathe again” after going through an intubation process, did not hesitate for a minute when the opportunity to participate in the trials of the vaccine produced by the Chinese laboratory Sinovac Biotech.
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Ivan also signed up. The two have just received the second dose of the so-called CoronaVac, one of four vaccines being tested in Brazil.
“I’m quite optimistic and I think it will work,” says Graziela.
“The vaccine is the way to have immunity and be able to contain a pandemic like this one,” says Iván.
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