Reducing the contagion of health personnel has become one of the main obsessions of large Spanish hospital centers to avoid a decrease in staff that prevents the crisis caused by the coronavirus from being faced with guarantees.

In addition to the - in many cases deficient - protection measures for health workers during their contact with patients, protocols have been implemented to limit contagion among professionals in common spaces such as dining rooms.

Bread bagged in individual rations.

An example is the one that has been launched in the Vall d'Hebron Hospital, one of the reference centers in Catalonia. The management of the center has issued a "mandatory" circular - to which EL MUNDO has had access - which "restricts" the use of the dining rooms of the General Hospital, Children's Hospital and Hospital de la Mujer "for exclusive use of personnel who work 12-hour shifts and those on duty ». This implies that the health workers who make shorter shifts - seven hours or consultations, for example - will not be able to use the dining rooms to reduce the probability of contagion among potentially infected workers who are unaware of carrying the virus due to lack of symptoms or for not having obtained still the results of the Covid-19 screening test.

The precautions imposed by the Vall d'Hebron management do not end here. As one of the photographs illustrating this article shows, the toilets that can use the dining room will not be able to sit facing each other. Workers with red crosses have been told which table places cannot be occupied, so that there are not more than two sharing them even though their capacity is for four diners.

In addition, all the utensils - plates, glasses, forks and knives -, usually made of ceramic and metal and reusable, have been replaced by others made of plastic and for single use. Like bread, they are delivered bagged in individual packs to prevent them from being contaminated by the virus.

Cutlery bagged in individual packs.

“It is a very small percentage of doctors and nurses who go down to the dining rooms. In addition to those who cannot do it due to the restrictions imposed by time, there are those who prefer to eat in the unit. The volume has been brutally lowered. Before, you used to queue to eat and now you arrive and you have free tables, ”a Vall d'Hebron toilet reported to this newspaper.

Catalonia already has 600 health professionals infected by the coronavirus.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • Catalonia
  • Infectious diseases
  • Coronavirus

Education School closes throughout Spain due to coronavirus

MadridFather Ángel, after six elderly people died in his residence in the last hours: "We lack material and personnel"

CoronavirusCatalonia closes schools from tomorrow