Coronavirus: in Spain, a deconfinement in pain

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Text by: Véronique Gaymard Follow

Spain, which is also preparing for deconfinement, is one of the countries most affected by the coronavirus, with more than 26,000 deaths. Unemployment figures are skyrocketing. In the working-class cities of southern Madrid, a reservoir of cheap labor and undocumented workers, health and economic concerns are great.

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From our special correspondent in the south of Madrid,

Leganés, a working-class municipality south of Madrid, is where the coronavirus struck the hardest, among a very elderly population, many retirement homes, and the youngest generations hard hit by economic crises, including that of 2008.

Doctor Rafael Rodriguez Rosado has been an internal medicine specialist for over twenty years at Severo Ochoa hospital. Never had he known such an overflow. "  To give you an idea, the hospital has a capacity of 350 beds, some days, we worked for 700 hospitalized patients ," he explains. So we doubled the hospital! There were patients in the hallways, people bringing their own mattresses so they could lie down. Patients who were choking ... We had to make choices, establish priorities, between such and such patient, I give the bed to the youngest. These are terrible decisions for us and for my colleagues in intensive care. Colleagues of doctors cried when there was nothing they could do for one of their patients  . ”

On the front door of the hospital, there is a poster with the inscription in colored letters: "  Everything will be fine, we will get by  ". With the gradual release of containment, Doctor Rosado is worried. "  In my opinion, there will be new waves, I hope they will not be as strong ," he said. Other measures are needed, including identifying the cases of Covid-19 with tests, but in Spain, it is not done enough. Even for the hospital staff, we just got tested. One of my colleagues tested positive yesterday. When you learn that, you have to take the news  . ”

Caregiver discomfort

Discomfort is great among health workers who have felt mistreated. Many have precarious contracts, like Vanessa, a nurse. "  I don't think we can return to the normalcy we had before, " she said. It will be a new normal, and I hope that it will include better working conditions for health personnel, and above all more means to offer a quality health service to the population  ”.

For the inhabitants, it is a question of considering the next phases of deconfinement, with a lot of fears, health, but also social and economic. Unemployment figures are skyrocketing.

In the town of Puente de Vallecas, the queues lengthen in front of the parishes which distribute meals or baskets of food. Before the health crisis, 300 people came every day. Today, there are 900 of them, like Laura, in her thirties, who arrived from Bolivia in 2007. Confinement requires, she no longer has a job. "  I have no papers, so I come here to this church which helps us ," she explains. Right now, I only earn 100 euros per month by cooking for a blind person, but we don't live on 100 euros. Before, I was a housekeeper with people, but I have no more work, and without papers, no help  ”.

The state, the regions and the municipalities are trying to agree on assistance plans for individuals who are unemployed and businesses that will have to restart, but the wound is deep and here, we fear the real unemployment figures.

► Read also: Coronavirus: in Spain, decontamination at no load

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• Spain
• Coronavirus
• Social issues
• Health and Medicine

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