Stories

The Life and Death Shift

The Life and Death Shift

As coronavirus tore through northern Italy, hospitals became the front lines in a grueling war.
Desperate patients crowded into emergency rooms, sick, dying and afraid.
These are the faces of the men and women who fought to save them.

By the middle of March, northern Italy had become the epicenter of a global pandemic. The coronavirus had infected tens of thousands of Italians, devastating the country with Europe’s oldest population. In the region of Lombardy, where the virus first exploded in the West, a wealthy and advanced health care system had suddenly become a war zone.
Hospitals expanded intensive-care capacity, lined entire wards with ventilators and crowded corridors with oxygen tanks and beds. The doctors, nurses, paramedics and volunteers had little choice but to soldier through day and night with little rest.
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“I’m where the patients arrive: There’s a big tent in front of the hospital that’s like a waiting room. The people there don’t talk much because they’re afraid. You try to give them a moment of support. I can’t say to them, ‘Don’t worry, it will all be OK.’ But I can try to calm them. I say, ‘Now you’re in good hands.’ ’’
Cristian Roversi, 43 years old, volunteer EMT for Associazione Nazionale Carabinieri, Brescia

“There is this sense that the enemy could be anywhere, and in any given moment you can see this in the eyes of the people who live here. They express, without even wanting to, a profound sense of loss. These are scars that stay inside.”
Commander Giuditta Luca, 43 years old, pathologist of the Italian naval force in help at Papa Giovanni XXIII hospital in Bergamo.

“The most shocking thing is to see the fear in their eyes, mostly in younger patients. They rely completely on us. Many at night are afraid of falling asleep and never waking up again.”
Paola Speri, 53 years old, head nurse of the Infectious disease Unit at Luigi Sacco hospital, Milan.

“Every intensive-care procedure must be in proportion to age, to the progress of the disease, to the expectation of life. In normal times, we always try. In these situations, it’s not possible. Since the beginning, I have thought of the words of John Paul II: It is necessary that the heroic becomes daily and that the daily becomes heroic.”
Gabriele Tomasoni, 65 years old (and 8 children), Primary Physician at the Intensive Care Unit, Spedali Civili di Brescia, Brescia.

“Now that it is spring, everything is marvelous and in bloom. I went for a walk in the hospital’s garden and took in the smell of it, and I said to myself: ‘Do you really want to go into retirement to be with the grandchildren? On a day like this, where would you rather be?’ And my answer to myself is: ‘I want to be here, at the side of these patients. I want to be with these patients. I want to heal these patients.’ ”
Roberta Terzi, 66 years old, physician of the Infectious disease Unit at Luigi Sacco hospital, Milan.

 

Text by The New York Times – Jason Horowitz and Raffaele Panizza.

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