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The Madrid hospitals called the nurses and doctors scattered throughout the provinces to cam. Men and women went to the ringing of the infection, which was still galloping through the capital, hours before confinement was decreed. Hospitals were already beginning to export bodies to morgues. "I made a couple of calls, I took the car and left for Madrid. I was stopped. I didn't think much of it ," says Carlos, a 31-year-old male nurse who lived in San Fernando when Wuhan's name didn't sound familiar to us.

He is now isolated in room 1414 of the Marriot Auditorium hotel in Madrid. Medicalized as the Colón Hotel, where Clara, another nurse from Quintanar del Orden, also isolated for a week, spends her days. They were both kicked out of their shared flats after becoming infected . Carlos has been hospitalized for 14 days. "I spoke to a friend to stay on his couch to sleep. It was impossible to find a house." He started working in the ICU of the Príncipe de Asturias Hospital in Alcalá de Henares. "I had never been in an ICU. It was chaos. That ... I did not feel ... I was transferred to the gym where they had prepared 18 beds, as if it were one more floor. There I was infected."

Fever was the first symptom. "I spent a regular night. The next day I spoke to occupational health . They recommended that I go home." Friends waited. "I had a 38 fever. They asked me to leave," recalls Carlos. "I wouldn't have done the same, but I understood them." And he got into his car to pass the Asian fevers of the Covid-19. "My mother spoke to the nurses union. I spoke to the hospital." Management made her confined to the pilot's seat. Six hours later, he was recommended to go to the hotel. "They didn't wait for me there. They did n't know the protocol . I called the person in charge who had advised me and they let me spend the night."

New in Madrid

In Madrid, during the first days of the emergency, the Community government enabled hundreds of rooms prepared to receive "patients with mild symptoms" before it was necessary to set up a field hospital in Ifema. "They were intended for the sick or health workers who could not isolate themselves in their own homes because they are small or live with someone at risk," explains Mercedes, secretary of organization for Satse, the Madrid nursing union. "They also welcome workers who change city overnight with a salary of 900 euros ."

Initially, the union was in charge of managing the accommodation. "We received many inquiries. People were very lost. Through email we spoke with human resources from the Community of Madrid, who have behaved very well."

The recruited nurses were looking for a place to sleep. "If they had any problem, we would solve it for them. They did not know anything, some of them or where the hospital that had hired them was. Now they are managed by the addresses of the centers . They contact them and give them a hotel place near the area where they are destined to work "if they haven't found anything on their own.

Until they began to enable rooms for infected workers who have been left stranded. "With Carlos there was a problem. His mother called us very nervous. We managed the hotel for him that day. He entered without knowing if they were going to let him spend another night." Mercedes is still in contact with him. "We talk almost every day."

"I couldn't stay there"

Clara's experience has become popular because she has recorded a video that has gone viral. "I was in Castilla-La Mancha and they told me that there was a lack of personnel in Madrid." The police had to go to the apartment that he shared with three other people, two colleagues and the landlord. "I told the WhatsApp group that he had infected me and the landlord kicked me out, he told me that he couldn't continue there," after testing positive for the coronavirus that was carried out at the hospital where he works. "I don't want to say which one it is," he says from room 510 of the Colón hotel.

"I took the appropriate hygiene measures: I was isolated, I had a bathroom to myself and we used to take turns to the kitchen," she recalls. One of the roommates sided with the landlord. "We all had a verbal contract. I guess fear, well, it pushes you to certain things."

Clara refused to leave. "At that time I had nowhere to go . They met in the living room to decide what to do with me. I called 091. Polícia came home. In the end the Samur picked me up." Your landlord appears every afternoon to applaud the doctors. "I don't understand that B- side. It disowned me. I felt rejected ."

Back to hospital

That same night he already slept in the hotel. Since then, he has not heard from the landlord, whom he plans to report. "I don't know what I'm going to do. At least I have proof of what happened. I was really pissed off." She only talks to one of her old roommates. "She is Italian. She knows exactly what the coronavirus means . She worries."

The quarantine is spent "like everyone else, with books, making video calls and attending yoga classes online." The family was concerned at first. "I had no serious symptoms. I lost the sense of smell and taste."

Carlos watches "series and movies" and reads the newspapers. "So I am informed." His head ached, "but I didn't have vomiting or anything." Start to savor the food. "I notice it. The food they give us here doesn't have much flavor. I'll notice it more when it comes out."

Both hope to test negative on the new tests. "I guess I'll go back to work," like Clara, who has in mind to join as soon as she is well. "No one is going to stay home with their arms crossed watching how others are working."

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  • Coronavirus
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