Close to a hospital in Madrid that confronts the new Corona virus in the emergency department, four young female doctors live in one apartment and share fears of an epidemic, which they hope will emerge from it "more mature".
In the small sitting room decorated with artificial cactus plants and a large cylinder for Bob Dylan, one of the four doctors, Maria Luisa Prados, announced to her colleagues at the end of March that "a young woman of 28 years old died of the Corona virus, and she was just like a family doctor in a health center."
"I was very worried at first," says Lourdes Ramos, another doctor from the four young women. "I even got injured in the hands because of the frequent cleaning." She is tired of the daily follow-up of cases of "patients who develop well, and then enter the stage of danger overnight."
Maria Luisa and Lourdes are 29, and Christina and I are two years younger.
As for the neighbors who clap every evening for the medical personnel from the windows and balconies, they do not know that these four young women are doctors at the end of their studies working from eight in the morning in a health center, before moving to the emergency department in a nearby hospital until eight in the morning of the next day.
Female doctors share several characteristics, including the length of their hair, and their attachment to the areas they come from, i.e. Andalusia and the Canary Islands. Three of them soon finish their studies in "family and community medicine", and they were planning to celebrate this in Vietnam last month.
But on the third of March, the first death from the Coruna virus was announced in the country, and the epidemic has claimed more than 25,000 lives since then.
We are not immortals.
The four female doctors, three of whom are girls ’doctors, discovered the health system’s shortages and weaknesses as well.
"This experience will help us to become more mature as doctors, and to give life its value in another way," she says, adding: "We are not immortals."
At the end of the long tunnel inside the apartment, Maria Luisa Prados points to the abandoned shower room, where the uniforms they wear are stacked in the health center and should be washed at 90 degrees.
The hardest moments
The young women are silent about answering a question about the most difficult moments they have experienced. However, Maria Luisa was particularly affected by the suffering experienced by other colleagues at the height of the crisis due to the lack of respirators, forcing them to refuse some patients access to the intensive care unit.
The doctors cried when they informed the relatives of the patients of bad news, especially those who were not initially able to "enter the Corona virus to take a goodbye look" to their dying patients, which was later allowed, according to Christina Rios.
Three of them were sent to work in the field hospital at the Madrid Exhibition Center.
In this place, which was originally designed to treat less serious cases, the doctors were printed in a spirit of "fellowship" and "joy" to see hundreds of patients eventually recover from the disease. They fear a new future outbreak of the virus, forcing the authorities to reopen the field hospital after it closes on May 1.
However, these young women entered into a verbal agreement, stipulating that the virus should not be allowed to control all aspects of their lives.
That is why Maria Luisa practiced contemporary dance, while Lourdes practiced drawing hobby, I lift weights, and Christina pursued lessons to teach guitar online.
They share times in the sitting room to talk, play cards, dance, play music, and eat dishes that I bring. "It's like a treatment between girlfriends," she says. Our treatment is through music, laughter, and dance. ”
Patients slept 48 hours in chairs
Like other hospitals in Madrid, the number of patients has exceeded the capacity of Gregorio Maranion Hospital. "I will not forget on March 24," says Rubio. "We were wearing individual protective equipment and entering the Corona virus, which was practically covering the entire hospital," she added. All the corridors were flooded with sick people. Many of them had been waiting for a bed, 48 hours ago, asleep on the chairs. ”
During her talk, I reclaim her feeling completely helpless because "someone may die sooner without even noticing", so that the performance of the nursing staff "improved later and we began to understand how the virus works."
Medical students work from eight in the morning in a health center, before moving to the emergency department in a nearby hospital, until eight in the morning the next day.