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Coronavirus pandemic
ChinaDiplomacy

Spain’s health workers overburdened and undersupplied in coronavirus fight

  • More than 15,000 workers infected as hospitals struggle with a lack of test kits and protective gear
  • Chronic shortages are forcing emergency teams to ration equipment and come up with their own makeshift solutions

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Health workers in protective gear outside an emergency entrance to a hospital in northern Spain. Photo: AFP
Ana Salvá
Overburdened hospitals and a shortage of protective measures and tests are taking a toll on Spanish medical professionals who are contracting Covid-19 – the illness caused by the new coronavirus – at an alarming rate.
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To date, more than 15,000 health professionals in Spain – about 14 per cent of the national total – have been infected. In contrast, Italy reported that health workers accounted for about 10 per cent of its infections.

“I have tried to be careful, but when you work in a hospital, no one can guarantee that one of your colleagues doesn’t have the virus in the asymptomatic phase,” said ambulance crew member Xevi Mateu, who tested positive for the virus a week ago.

Mateu, who lives and works in Catalonia, said he thought he might have got infected during a meal break at the hospital or while on duty in the cramped space of an emergency vehicle.

Information on how to protect himself from the rampaging pandemic was conflicting, he said, and with no guarantee on future supplies he was forced to ration his use of protective equipment as soon as the demand for ambulance services began to exceed capacity.

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Albert Gual, another emergency worker in Catalonia, said protocols had changed since he first started transferring Covid-19 patients to hospital, and he believes the shortage of protective equipment is to blame.

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