Coronavirus: Doctors in Spain ‘suicidal’ over traumatic hospital conditions amid fears official death toll is an understatement

‘When you see patients gasping for air as if they were fish out of water, it has an emotional effect on you,’ a doctor in intensive care tells Graham Keeley

A healthcare worker wearing a protective suit at the entrance of the Severo Ochoa Hospital in Leganes, near Madrid, on Friday (AFP/Getty)

Doctors in Spain have been so traumatised by their experiences trying to deal with the coronavirus pandemic that they have considered suicide, medical staff have told The Independent.

As they struggled to cope with the second highest death rate in the world after Italy, health workers in Spain have complained about the lack of hospital beds, insufficient protective equipment and a lack of testing kits.

With health service staff accounting for about 14 per cent of all infections in Spain, doctors and nurses working on the front line spoke out about the emotional impact of dealing with the outbreak.

“You have the impression that you are working on the set of a war film. Some of my colleagues have been so traumatised by what is going on that they have considered suicide and have had to be treated by psychiatrists at this hospital,” Ana Gimenez, a doctor working in intensive care, told The Independent.

“When you see patients gasping for air as if they were fish out of water, it has an emotional effect on you. When this is over, there are many doctors who will need to be treated for post-traumatic stress disorder.”

The number of people who lost their lives to the virus in Spain was 809 in the past 24 hours, officials said on Saturday. That represented a drop of more than 13 per cent compared to Friday’s toll of new deaths of 932.

The total number of infections in Spain increased to more than 124,700, up from 117,700 on Friday. Rates of both new infections and daily rises in deaths both appear to be slowing.

Dr Gimenez, 55, has been a doctor for 30 years and was working as a GP when the outbreak started, after which she volunteered to work in the intensive care unit of the Hospital Infanta Leonor in Madrid.

The hospital is normally equipped for 270 patients but presently has over 600.

“We have had to stop all other types of treatment. We have a children’s ward which normally has seven beds but there are currently 34 people there, some sitting on seats for days at a time,” she said.

“You have to deal with patients who have been on seats for days and they start arguing that they should be allowed to have a bed. It is difficult to deal with.”

Dr Ana Gimenez has been a doctor for 30 years and volunteered to be transferred to intensive care after the outbreak began (Supplied)

Dr Gimenez said it is obvious that the death toll which the government releases at sombre daily briefings does not correspond to reality.

She said this is because it is based only on patients who have been submitted for PCR (antigen) tests, whereas she believes many more people have died without being tested.

At Ifema, a vast exhibition centre on the outskirts of Madrid which has been converted into a hospital with over 1,000 beds, the medical director Antonio Zapatero asked doctors to dance past beds to raise the spirits of patients.

“We have seen about 40 per cent of our patients sent home and only lost five patients so far. We try to keep the spirits up by clapping whenever patients are sent home,” he said.

Spain’s left-wing government imposed a state of emergency on 14 March which is not expected to be lifted until the end of April.

The rate of new infections and deaths will determine when and how the government decides to relax its lockdown.

However, the tally of deaths on which the government will base its decisions is mistaken, said Fernando Rodriguez Artalejo, a professor of preventive medicine at the Autonomous University of Madrid.

“It is likely that many people who died had pre-existing medical conditions so they may have died when they had contracted coronavirus but it was actually the cause of death,” he told The Independent.

Prof Rodriguez Artalejo, who advised governments on the Ebola epidemic, said Spain cannot relax the lockdown until there is a substantial fall in new infections.

“We are not at that situation right now and we are not likely to be in that situation for a while,” he said.

“It is highly probable we do not know the real number of cases because we have not carried out enough tests.”

If you are experiencing feelings of distress and isolation, or are struggling to cope, The Samaritans offers support; you can speak to someone for free over the phone, in confidence, on 116 123 (UK and ROI), email jo@samaritans.org, or visit the Samaritans website to find details of your nearest branch.

For services local to you, the national mental health database – Hub of Hope – allows you to enter your postcode to search for organisations and charities who offer mental health advice and support in your area.