This is what being a nurse in the first line against the coronavirus

To be a nurse, the vocation of service is, in essence, love of neighbor, love of others, the act of helping. A nurse is not only a woman who wears white and boasts ribbons along her bonnet (the white hat they wear on her head), a nurse is a complete human being, who understands the needs and feelings of others.

With this definition our trade begins daily, and it started like this for 30 years, with infinite earnings and personal and work growth, with getting up every day happy, convinced that everything will turn out well. It was thus until the month of November, that we began to hear news of the situation in a distant country with an epidemic that had been going around the world, and that in December it began to accentuate, leaving hundreds of dead. The days passed normally in emergency care for multiple injuries, abdominal pain, COPD, cardiac arrest. Anyway, the everyday days of a nurse.

February came and we saw how the virus began to penetrate European countries. Through networks we began to see testimonies from fellow nurses and doctors who were infected.

To tell the truth, in Colombia we saw the pandemic very far away, but uncertainty and fear began to settle. In February we began to attend to several patients who had respiratory difficulties and who probably died of coronavirus. We were not aware of other patients immediately entering intensive care. This happened in a matter of days.

Until that month, the matter was handled with basic and current biosecurity measures. But it was not long before we realized that we could not continue to care for patients with the basic elements of biosecurity, but we needed to organize the service and protect the staff at all costs.

We waited for this to happen and it did not happen. In the month of March, we began to demand the ARLs and the administration, and to send communications from the unions to supply us with the necessary supplies to be able to work. On some occasion they answered that this request was with the ARL, that it was they who should provide us. The days passed and there was a bit of tranquility: we had robes, hats, leggings, masks (conventional), protective glasses and transparent masks.

In the case of masks, there were three per service, this means that they are for collective use. They are used by officials from all four shifts. Many colleagues, in the midst of fright, anguish and uncertainty, prefer to buy implements with our own means such as N-95 masks and anti-fluid gowns.

We should not make these purchases since we are civil servants, we belong to an entity and we also contribute to an ARL, but we had to feel more at ease in the provision of services. The truth is that the few inputs that ARL gave were of poor quality.

So we continue to attend as we could, the important thing was patient care and support. For the month of March, we were able to prepare the emergency services to avoid contamination of all and guarantee timely attention to patients. The days went by and we looked at the statistics for Spain. “How many dead, by God! How are we going to do here? We do not have the capacity or the staff to serve so many people. ” That is what we discussed with my colleagues when I tried to calm them down, being the head of the service. Many of my assistants were terrified. On one occasion they gave us a talk by the psychologist, but they never met us again. Sometimes you give strength to all people: to your work group, to your family, but internally you are broken, very scared under that uniform. Behind that leadership hides a fragile human being with much anguish and fear.

Well, the day he didn’t want it to come, it came: they called us because we had to undergo a test to confirm coronavirus. Some of the patients we had attended and some deceased from the Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit had tested positive for COVID-19. They took a sample, but some colleagues who took the sample first were not isolated, and we continued working with them. We had direct exposure with them and oh surprise! The test of one of them came out positive.

That’s when we were told that we had to go into preventive isolation. Oh my God. We are all isolated. Through the chat we encouraged each other, some sent voice notes crying, others were very sad, but we all had the doubt of whether we would get rid of this well. Some had colds, bone and headaches, others were stressed and depressed, and we all live in fear of harming our families.

So we started to think, what was wrong? The Ministry of Health has failed in the guidelines provided. There was and is not solid information and it is not delivered on time. Basically, nobody knew how to handle these patients, neither the doctors nor the nurses, nobody.

For example, there were patients who came for other pathologies and then they complicated, so it was time to move them. In short, even the protocols continue to adapt. But it is sad: we had three months, from December to March, to be able to fine-tune those protocols, socialize them with the staff and do training. We had experiences, good or bad, in other countries. But the national government lacked empowerment on the subject. Even, on one occasion the Minister gave us to understand that it would be very easy to handle, and those of us who came to pay for the plate were us, the nurses of the country, those who are in the emergency department, ICUs, the ambulance paramedics, who are putting the chest to the patient and his pathologies.

Doctors do an extraordinary job, but they value the patient, issue orders, and try to have as little contact as possible with them. For nurses it is different: patients have to be changed in position, lubricate their skin, change the units of patients, administer medications, channel their veins, clean secretions, attend to their basic needs. The care work is from seven to twelve hours, every day, 365 days a year.

So I think this profession goes beyond applause: we are grateful to those who value our profession, but what sadness. A global pandemic had to occur for them to realize that health in Colombia is completely unprotected. Being a profession of risk we do not have a salary that compensates so much dedication and responsibility.

There are bad carousels for bad contracts in the EPS, we are not offered guarantees or with the protection elements, nor with decent jobs, and we add the aggression on the part of patients and relatives. To this add endless administrative activities. You cannot provide care when you have the care of a service with 25 or more patients and an auxiliary with 11 or 13 or more patients. That is why in Colombia nursing has a deficit of professionals.

The message I leave with my colleagues is this: as nurses we have the opportunity to heal the mind, the soul, and the heart and body of our patients, their families and ourselves. They may forget your name, but they will never forget how you made them feel.

* Consuelo Alvarado has been a nurse for 30 years. He belongs to the North Subnet of the Emergency Service of Bogotá and is part of the hospital where he has worked for 26 years.