“There are no schedules in war, and there are none here either” – Inside ITU in Barcelona
5292 Mins Read
Perfect order prevails over the chaos of the pandemic at the Vall d’Hebron Hospital in Barcelona.
“Pneumonia caused by Covid-19 is practically the only illness being treated in the 13 ICU areas set up in Vall d’Hebron,” says Ricard Ferrer, head of intensive care unit. “Patients coming in have respiratory failure in addition to pneumonia, and 90% of cases require intubation and a ventilator. We have people of all ages, from 30-year-olds to people in their late seventies.”
Even though the corridor is busy, everything is in its place. Wearing white and green striped personal protective equipment (PPE), a nurse waits at the doors of one of the screened-off units. Standing outside, a colleague issues voice instructions to help her remove the equipment. Infection is everywhere and the nurses do two-hour shifts in the units to optimize the scarce PPE. “It’s hard to bear more than two hours with the PPE. It makes you sweat. We’re wearing three pairs of gloves and you can’t feel the vein properly when you want to put in an intravenous tube,” says Elia Olivera, an ICU specialized nurse.
Improvisation has become the name of the game and the equipment used to clean the bronchoscopes is now also being used to clean the PPE goggles. “It’s recycling time,” jokes the assistant in charge of the job.
Inside the ICU, it’s hard to recognize the heroes who are applauded each night at 8pm by citizens across Spain. There are no capes or superpowers on display. All you can see are exhausted healthcare workers whose dark circles beneath their eyes are hidden by masks.
There are no schedules in war, and there are none here either,” says Antoni Roman, director of healthcare at Vall d’Hebron. The doctors are on 24-hour shifts with two days off in between.
“The shifts are very tough,” says Ferrer. “At home, I sleep in a separate room and I haven’t hugged my children for a month. The distance between us at home is hard, and here at the hospital there is a lot of pressure, a lot of work, and you can see that the patients feel very alone.”
“For the first few days, I was crying all day, but then you get used to it,” says Elia Olivera who is standing in a hemodialysis room that has been converted into an ICU. “We’re pumped with adrenaline. The problems will come later.”
The hospital’s psychiatry team is offering emotional support to professionals and also to the patients’ families. The nursing supervisor of the entire intensive care unit, Pilar Girón, admits that it is difficult to manage the fatigue. “I have never thought ‘I can’t go on,’ but there has been a general feeling of being in a cave and for a while we even kept our gaze down.”
