In Madrid, the health system already overwhelmed by the second wave - France 24

Madrid (AFP)

Near Madrid airport, the army of cranes is active 24 hours a day: here must come out of the ground in November "the hospital of pandemics".

But the second wave of the Covid-19 epidemic is already here, straining the health system.

Along the highway, dozens of trucks raise clouds of dust on a huge wasteland where nearly 400 workers have been working day and night since July.

Concrete mixers run at full speed, pipes spit out gallons of cement, welders sparks from high pillars.

"Two months ago, there was nothing here," smiles Alejo Mirando, the director general of health infrastructure in the region of Madrid, the most affected in the country in the spring.

Funded by the regional government for an amount "exceeding 50 million euros", the Isabel Zendal hospital, nicknamed "the pandemic hospital", a gigantic complex of 45,000 m2, will be able to accommodate more than 1,000 patients in the event of a health crisis .

Bay windows to monitor patients without becoming contaminated, large halls without individual rooms, negative pressure rooms for performing autopsies: the architecture was designed, explains Alejo Mirando, to "avoid the transmission of the viral load" and is inspired by of Ifema, the exhibition center converted between March and May into a field hospital.

Promise of better preparation in the face of the second wave of the epidemic, this hospital will however be delivered too late to treat the flood of patients which is already overwhelming health centers.

- "Containing the wave" -

"The evolution of the epidemic in Madrid worries us": the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez admitted Monday to have a concerned eye on the region of more than 6.5 million inhabitants which represents since the beginning of the epidemic nearly a third of the more than 29,000 deaths from Covid-19 in the country.

Over the last seven days, Madrid concentrates 73 of the 191 dead and 30% of the cases detected.

The situation is "very, very worrying", admits Doctor Silvia Duran, spokesperson for the association of doctors Amyts, evoking "a speed of progression" of the contagion curve "similar to that of the beginning of the pandemic".

"The health centers (where the treating doctors paid by the region work, editor's note) manage to contain the second wave" but "the hospitals are preparing and 16% of their beds are already occupied by Covid patients" against 6% for the rest of the country, she continues.

"We are on the verge of collapse," confirms José Molero, of the Csit union.

"The next step will be when the population will go directly to the hospital, because they cannot be received by the attending physician."

Lack of personnel, resources and ... rest: the doctors are "bloodless", exhausted because they receive "up to 60 patients" daily, he continues.

- "High risk area" -

Densely populated, the country's transport “hub”, Madrid is a “high-risk area”, Fernando Simon, chief epidemiologist at the Ministry of Health, stressed on Monday.

But the region, which is responsible for health, is reassuring.

"The situation is bearable for the moment," Antonio Zapatero, regional public health adviser, told AFP, conceding an increase in cases for "a month and a half" especially in "the south of the region" .

Governed by the Popular Party (right), the region ended up asking to benefit from 150 soldiers, made available by the Spanish left government to help identify contact cases.

The announcement was not enough: a collective of doctors plans to file a complaint against the regional government, while several hundred others demand in an open letter "to act in order to avoid a new collapse of the system" of health.

Among other things, caregivers require hiring or the use of teleworking to avoid becoming infected themselves.

"It is we who are going to get sick," warns Silvia Duran, recalling that Spain held in April the world record for contaminated caregivers (20% of cases) according to a report from the European Health Agency.

"We must create synergies between political leaders and scientists, otherwise the fall will start badly. We cannot afford to relive what we experienced in the spring", adds Pilar Serrano, secretary of the Health association Madrid public.

© 2020 AFP