Barcelona (AFP)

The employees of a medical hotel made a hedge of honor on Wednesday to the last "Covid patients" housed there to relieve the health system. After months of activity, the Melia Sarria in Barcelona will only reopen in September, awaiting its business customers.

"Almost a hundred days with patients, it was a great experience, very special and moving," said Hugo Figueroa, 45, one of the employees who, in the lobby, take a last group photo with health professionals.

Since the end of March, more than 500 people infected with the coronavirus have passed through this 300-room establishment, which has sometimes been sold out.

And now the last six patients leave the hotel, to the applause of employees who are exhausted but proud of the work accomplished.

Blue anti-Covid gowns still hang by the breakfast room - transformed for a few months into an office for medical personnel - while a nurse arranges boxes of medical equipment.

Just a few months ago, dozens of patients left ambulances and coaches every day to report to reception.

In full containment, the city was deserted when the hotel was then medicalized to relieve the pressure in overcrowded hospitals.

The state of alert having been lifted at the end of June, the street resounds again with the roar of the engines and the sidewalks have found their passers-by, mostly masked.

"The epidemiological situation has changed, we have moved a lot in all directions. So closing the hotel, now it's a reason for joy," says doctor Maria Pérez-Hervada, who had temporarily left the primary care center neighbor to officiate at the hotel.

In Spain, where the coronavirus caused more than 28,300 deaths, this doctor was able to observe the beneficial effects of the severe confinement imposed on the population from mid-March.

"In the beginning, the patients came from hospitals, almost all of them were hospitalized in intensive care, the condition of some became complicated and they had to return to the hospital," she recalls. But thereafter, patients who had been admitted to intensive care became rarer.

Until, in recent weeks, most patients have had "mild" Covid cases, who did not need to go through the hospital but did not have enough space at home to isolate from loved ones.

- Reopening after summer -

Like Janela Casandra Armeño, a young 22 year old woman who leaves the hotel, officially healed.

Her case was not serious, but since "there weren't many rooms" at her place, she had joined the hotel last week, like her stepfather.

Her PCR test was negative and she can now go home, "kiss her daughter".

Her stepfather, like three other patients who were still positive, was transferred to an establishment of the same hotel group, which remains authorized for Covid patients at least until September, in case there is a resumption of the epidemic. .

The Melia Sarria is gradually becoming a hotel again. Cleaning agents disinfect every nook and cranny while employees replace beds.

However, it will only welcome customers after the summer.

Although Spain has reopened its borders to citizens of the European Union and 15 other countries, those responsible for the establishment prefer to wait until the volume of visitors is sufficient to ensure its profitability.

"Next week, we could start welcoming tourists, but we are located in a business district that depends on a less tourist clientele," explains its director, Enrique Aranda, for whom, "the idea is to open in September ", when delegates and corporate clients return.

Hugo Figueroa admits in a hurry to see them alight from taxis and limousines: "This will mean that all of this is behind us and we will remember it as a sort of collective nightmare".

© 2020 AFP