 |
| Health ministry personnel test a woman for the novel coronavirus in northern Guayaquil, Ecuador, on April 19, 2020 (AFP Photo/Jose SANCHEZ) |
Guayaquil (Ecuador) (AFP) - Front line medics in one of Latin America's coronavirus epicenters are lifting the lid on the daily horrors they face in an Ecuadoran city whose health system has collapsed.
In one
hospital in Guayaquil overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients, staff have had to pile
up bodies in bathrooms because the morgues are full, health workers say.
In another,
a medic told AFP that doctors have been forced to wrap up and store corpses to
be able to reuse the beds they died on.
Ecuador has
recorded close to 23,000 coronavirus cases and nearly 600 deaths, with
Guayaquil by far its worst affected city. But the real toll is thought to be
far higher.
A
35-year-old nurse at the first hospital who spoke on condition of anonymity
said that the trauma of what he saw had affected him professionally and
personally.
When the
health emergency broke out in March, every nurse went from caring for 15
patients to 30 in the space of just 24 hours, he added.
"So
many people arrived that... they were practically dying in our hands,"
said the nurse.
Patients
were discharged or referred to other facilities "to free up all these
beds" for coronavirus patients, he told AFP.
"They
took out anesthesia machines from operating rooms to replace them with
ventilators.
"People
are alone, sad, the treatment wreaks havoc on the gastrointestinal tract, some
defecate; they feel bad and think they will always feel that way, and they see
that the person next to them starts to suffocate and scream that they need
oxygen."
It isn't
just hospitals that have been overwhelmed, but morgues too.
"The
morgue staff wouldn't take any more, so many times we had to wrap up bodies and
store them in the bathrooms," the nurse said.
Only when
the bodies were "stacked up six or seven high did they come to collect
them."
A
26-year-old colleague, also a nurse, confirmed the chaotic scenes.
"There
were many dead in the bathrooms, many lying on the floors, many dead in
armchairs," she told AFP.
 |
Workers
make coffins at the Angel Maria Canals cemetery in Guayaquil, Ecuador,
on April
9, 2020 (AFP Photo/Jose Sánchez)
|
'Sanitary
disaster'
Guayaquil's
health system has collapsed under the pressure of the coronavirus, and it seems
to be having catastrophic knock-on effects.
In the
first half of April, the province of Guayas, whose capital is Guayaquil,
recorded 6,700 deaths, more than three times the monthly average.
The
disparity suggests that the real COVID-19 death toll is far greater than the
official nationwide tally of fewer than 600.
President
Lenin Moreno has acknowledged that Ecuador's official coronavirus tallies
"are short" of the true figures.
A 28-year-old
doctor at a second Guayaquil hospital, who also insisted on anonymity, conjured
a similarly grim picture of health services in crisis.
"Bodies
were in the corridors of the emergency ward because the morgue was full,"
the medic told AFP, describing "20 to 25 corpses" waiting to be taken
away.
"It
was up to us to collect and wrap the corpse and store it so we could disinfect
the bed for the next patient," he added.
At the
first hospital, refrigerated containers were brought in to store bodies, some
of which remained for up to 10 days.
Some family
members "break the covers... so the fluids come out. It's a sanitary
disaster," said the 35-year-old male nurse.
 |
A paramedic
enters the disinfection booth outside the emergency room of the IESS
Sur
Hospital in Quito on April 18, 2020 (AFP Photo/RODRIGO BUENDIA)
|
'It kills
you psychologically'
The number
of daily deaths fell last week but that was scant consolation for this nurse,
who says he is tormented by what he has experienced.
When he
goes home, after a 24-hour shift, his feet hurting, he tries to rest but then
the "nightmare" strikes.
He dreams
of running until he falls and knocks "open the bathroom door with the
number of bodies... and you can't go back to sleep."
His home
life has also changed. He is following strict isolation so cannot see his
parents or brother.
When he
goes home he begins his ritual of disinfecting his car and shoes, hosing
himself down on the patio before washing his clothes in hot water.
"I eat
on a plastic table away from everyone. I leave my home with a mask, I can't hug
anyone, not even the pets," he said.
Every now
and then he thinks about the psychological mark left on him every time he has
to make do with hooking them up to cannula tubes when what they really need is
a ventilator.
"They
tell you, 'It's okay -- give them oxygen and a slow drip serum and leave
them,'" he told AFP.
"But
what if that was my mom? What if it was my dad? That kills you. It kills you
psychologically."
AFP sought
comment from health authorities in Guayaquil but did not get a reply.
A national
public health authority official said he had been in an emergency unit in
Guayaquil where bodies were piled up.
"A
morgue for eight deceased persons and you have to manage 150 bodies, what can
you do? You have to put them anywhere nearby that you have space," he told
AFP.
The
official said the number of cases in Guayaquil rose dramatically and rapidly in
a matter of days, overwhelming an inadequate emergency healthcare system.
"There
was such a speed of contagion that it reflected a large number of seriously ill
and a large number of deaths at a specific time," he said.
