Firstly: it was not obvious that we as a TV team would be let in. Permits are always required to be allowed to film in the hospitals in the county and to enter the intensive care unit are unusual. Being allowed to enter the room where the most severely ill patients are located was absolutely nothing to take for granted.
SVT colleagues elsewhere in the country have made similar reports, but the staff at Norrland University Hospital in Umeå wanted to give a different picture than the one that had appeared earlier. “We are not victims and we are not heroes. We are doing our job and there is no chaos, ”said nurse Veronica Frost on the telephone before our visit.
Still, me and photographer Tommy Forsgren do not know what will come when we put on protective robes, worms and a visor of transparencies and get ready in the lock before entering the hall. We also do not know how we will act when the tension releases afterwards.
But then we get a good sign - a sick bed is rolled out with a covid patient who has become more attractive and who is now allowed to continue rehabilitation in a care ward. The hope lights up just before we step in.