In the face of danger and the unknown, a person prepares itself, takes time, calculates, and weighs forces. Finally, when reality comes upon you, you realize that you are facing the extreme, in front of yourself and your fears and abilities, and that infinite time was of little use: you are not prepared.
Las Tunas, Cuba.- But a man is a man, says the poet, if the man still breathes. And if you still breathe, there is no other option: you have to walk. So you face the invisible demon, you cover up your smile, you cover yourself with green rags, glasses, gloves, boots, mask, life, value. And you face fear. Your job is to save lives, and that's why you came for.
You look at faces, you touch, you listen, you hear a breath, you clean the "monster's" footprint, you wash dishes, pick up trash, wash, console, accompany, you overcome yourself ... your job here is to save lives, that's why you came here for.
"EL CERRO," OF RESISTANCE AND LOVE
When Dr. Alfredo Ramón Cruz Cruz knew about that patient with a stuffy and runny nose, the alarms went off. He received the basic information of the patient and went to the cabin where he remained from the day before, he did not stop. And although the man was practically asymptomatic, he did not trust and with protection measures, he sent the traveler, who came from Spain, to the province of Holguín.
"The rest of the companions who shared the room underwent nasopharyngeal exudate, which was negative in all cases. Subsequently, the eighteen health workers and support and service personnel who were in contact with him were also negative. This shows that the team complied with the safety measures designed."
Ramón recorded the scene in his mind, also the name of the patient: Luis Ferrero Yero, who already celebrates life at home and recovers from fright after defeating COVID-19. He tells it as the moment of greatest tension in these almost 40 days that he already has at the head of the Isolation Center arranged in Cerro de Caisimú, in the municipality of Manatí, in Las Tunas. He refers that more than three hundred people have been in such a place between national and international travelers and contacts of positive cases.
There, each day is intense. You sleep little and work hard.
"When the patients arrive, we are ready to receive them, attend to them, and take care of their health. There is no specific time to start or end the day. When a positive case is determined, his or her contacts are located and moved here to an hour, until dawn."
At his 48 years old, Ramón, the son of a housewife and a peasant, is a man full of certainties, convinced of him and the causes he embraces. He is, in fact, from a young age, when he decided that if he was not a doctor, he would not be anything else in this life.
After choosing and being chosen by profession, he walked through lands of the mother continent, where he saw the faces of AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria; in Venezuela, he learned about violence and helped to put a stop to it. Because, is there a greater act of love and peace than saving a life? Then he would come to Brazil and now to this, the mission on his own land, because "we have the moral will and the physical strength to be here as long as necessary."
However, as days go by, the body and soul feel the weight of the days and the absences that hurt. The home is missed and the voice breaks when I ask him about the beings behind that resistance. He breathes, takes strength: "I am proud to contribute saving lives, it is also a way to prevent my wife, my girl, my son and the rest of the family from suffering from this disease. They are my prop, my support, thanks to them I'm here because they stay strong and support me at all times."
"WHILE THEY NEED ME, I'LL BE HERE"
In the red light area, soap, toilet paper, toothpaste, and other aid supplies await those who are to come. After scrubbing, washing, cleaning, disinfecting ... everything is in the exact order of things. Below or outside, the hat, the gloves, the mask, the long stockings, the boots, the glasses ... all precaution is little.
Some arrive at the center located at the Vladimir Ilyich Lenin University, with the alarm still on the surface, sometimes angry, others afflicted.
Until Monday, among the first faces they saw was that of Dr. Yuneydi Oro Hernández. 26Digital chatted with her before a new mission knocked on the door of this inhabitant of Las Tunas that talked about her work with the same passion as her mother and her teenage daughter, asthmatic by the way. She misses them. She hasn't seen them for over a month. She is here, "doing duty."
And duty often imposes severities difficult to bear.
"Here we receive the patients, they receive them and they move to the red zone where they will be under surveillance for 14 days. In accordance with the date of arrival in our province, on the fifth day the PCR is carried out, if they have been in the territory for more days, the rapid test is performed and the conduct to be taken is assessed, depending on the result. One alternative could be to keep them in the center or the transfer to their house with restriction of movement until completing the 14 days.
"Everyone who arrives is considered a confirmed case until they prove the opposite. This means that all medical, nursing and support personnel use the means of protection and adopt biosafety standards to take care of their health and that of the community."
At this time, Dr. Yuneydi Oro will walk like so many good Cubans nurturing that "Henry Reeve" that gallops through the world defying death. They say the UAE is their destination, or maybe another one; the place does not matter if the duty is done with dedication and devotion. We had already asked her if she had a planned date to finish this task against COVID-19. The answer, between smiles, was clear: "No, I don't have a date, while they need me, I'll be here."
YURISÁN, WITH THE SATISFACTION OF THE FULFILLED DUTY
Nurse Yurisán Castillo Alarcón has already been challenging "the bug" for many days, days that have given her as much as 14 years of experience at the Guillermo Tejas polyclinic. But this crusade against the new coronavirus has given her unique moments in her profession, like those of every night, when they hear the applause of neighbors and patients, who even chant the names of the health personnel workers.
Of course, she has been afraid: "The scare is always there. There are patients who are asymptomatic," she explains.
When you are facing the presumed invisible enemy, and even afterward, she goes over every detail, you will not fall into the jaws of the fearsome virus.
"Every time we measure vital signs and other parameters, we wash our hands and change gloves. We wear a mask and patients are also advised to wear it permanently. The mask is changed every three hours and five more are immersed in a hypochlorite solution for later washing.
For visits, we entered through one place and left through another. Before leaving, we bathed and changed clothes to finish the whole process."
This would be her first mission, "Tremendous inauguration!" She exclaims. She awaits, soon, to be at home with the satisfaction of a duty accomplished, "and well done!"
YAILIS, WHAT WE CUBANS ARE
She already lost the counting of days. The dates are slipped between procedures, guarantee insurance, coordinate "so that nothing is missing and everything is up to date so that doctors do their role that is the first and foremost."
Yalilis Espinosa Moro, director of the Student Residence at the University of Las Tunas, already knew and was even trained for last-minute emergencies! She and the group at the student center know about such procedures, it is a refuge for so many families against epidemics, floods, cyclones and all the frenzy of nature. "I have seen a lot of things here," she exclaims.
"But this is new, this is much more than protecting someone who lost their home. Here we welcome people who can have a disease as dangerous as COVID-19, which has hit hard in Cuba and the world," she says.
But if she has already lost the counting of days, she takes very well the counting of the «earnings» that this battle leaves her: "the first thing is to respect the work of the service and insurance personnel. Before I saw it as one more patient and now I assume the laundry service together with other colleagues, I say that it is strong and must be respected. The second thing is that you can establish incredible work connections, admire and learn from the performance of others and, ultimately, appreciate the effort of my country. We have to be thankful because this is not being done in other places on this planet."
Listening to Yalilis is like seeing inside the Cubans. This woman seems to sneak up on us and talks about our limitations and greatness, about the little things we possess and give, the gratitude of some and those who have not yet appreciated the tremendous effort behind everything the nation does to stop the pandemic.
A greater good moves this woman who celebrated her birthday there, who also has a family at home to care for and evokes her mother, who taught her that duty does not escape, it is fulfilled. For these reasons she "does her best" and is happy "that there are many, many people in Cuba who are doing the same as us, knowing that it is the only way to end this."
YOANIS, THE ESSENTIAL RETAGUARDIA
Until the day that the administrator of the Manatí polyclinic called her to ask for her assistance in this mission, Yoanis Pérez González carried out her tasks with the typical tranquility of the town she inhabits.
She was afraid, but she scared him away. In fact, she still faces it. "Yes, I said: I'm going to work there. I agreed and came, and I came back, and if I have to go back, I will go back."
A few days ago she was at home, after completing 14 days of work in the Center located in El Cerro, and there she is, again "doing the task", with days extended for more than 12 hours, "all day washing", but with the pleasure of knowing you are useful, essential.
As the days go by, the cooks from La Parrillada Restaurant from El Tanque de Buena Vista, the drivers from CubaTaxi, the maintenance workers, the laundry workers, and many other volunteers are still there at the University of Las Tunas in the Lenin campus. The story is reissued in the Isolation Centers located in Cerro de Caisimú, Los Cocos, Los Caciques, or anywhere else, where workers are given, not for themselves, but for others.
Some have changed the white coat of the health technologist for the broom, the mop, the bucket, the bleach, the washing machine…. others pause in the teaching profession or in the obligatory rest of these days without lessons; all, in fact, leave behind the tranquility of home. They leave home to face that invisible enemy that has caused so much harm, they go out to defy fear; it is the triumph of life.
There are valuable people among us!, that take one step forward, big of heart, from which they put their actions in their words and do so, with a quiet naturalness, "without calling the world to see them pass by", humble way of raise a country every day, Cuba.
