To begin, it must be said that this article is a tribute to all women and men, health professionals, who navigate against the current in a sea of permanent turbulence and who in recent years have been aggravated by the endless pandemic. What I experienced and saw on All Saints' Day in the emergency room of Hospital Clínic confirms what we already know: we have a collapsed system and professionals at their limit. Even so, nine hours in the emergency room allowed me to see the level of professionalism of its workers. I have taken a while to recount the experience because I always think these things should be written in a cool state. It needs to be digested well.
On All Saints' Day, a holiday that this year fell on a Monday, I went to the emergency room of Hospital Clínic for a consultation. I had been suffering from a dry cough for many days and found it very difficult to expectorate, which caused me acute pain mainly in my chest and in my skeleton in general. I wanted to ask if any cough syrup was compatible with a medical treatment I am taking. Someone with more common sense than me recommended that I not go, that I resolve it through 061. This phone exists for this type of consultation. Stubborn me, I headed to the emergency room at Villarroel Street, 170. I was aware that I would be there for a while and I brought a biography about Andreu Nin written by the journalist and writer Andreu Navarra, La revolución imposible. Navarra rigorously and captivatingly narrates the fascinating life of one of the greatest Catalan politicians and intellectuals of the 20th century. In my opinion, Francesc Macià for his charismatic leadership, Josep Tarradellas as the greatest statesman, and Andreu Nin are the most important Catalans in the political sphere of the last century. Nin is one of the characters with the most international transcendence and intellectually he was the greatest. Without a doubt.
My admission to the emergency room was at four in the afternoon. It seemed calm. There were few people on the ground floor. I get in line at the admission window and they attend to me right away. I explain my case. The boy looks me up on the computer. Without saying anything, he offers me a bracelet to put on my wrist and a sheet with my report. He sends me to floor minus one, following the yellow line. That was the only sentence he addressed to me. I go down. I wait on a bench in front of where the yellow line ends. They call me in a matter of minutes. A nurse checks my fever, my pulse and asks me for data about my health. She sends me to the second floor of the emergency room. I thought we were doing very well. Fast.
"Someone with more sanity than me recommended that I not go, that I solve it through 061. This phone exists for this type of consultation"My arrival at the second floor was already another matter. In the hallway leading to the entrance, there were people sitting on chairs placed without order or arrangement.To the right of the reception there were people sitting in wheelchairs, stretched out on beds, and many others in messy office chairs. I go to administration and hand in the sheet they had given me on the ground floor.
- Take a chair, and sit where you can. We will call you.
For a moment I remembered 061. But I had a book and time. I settled in a corner between the staff elevators and the reception. And without hesitation I went to Vendrell, in Baix Penedès, where Andreu Nin was born, into a humble family, what Raimon would call subordinate classes, his father was a shoemaker.
Hours pass, five, six, seven, and the room and its annexes, so to speak, do not empty, quite the opposite, more and more people arrive. A nurse comes out of the elevator with a gaunt man with a prosthesis on his left leg, he looks bad. He is poorly dressed. They leave him parked in the wheelchair he arrived in front of me. Next to an elderly lady who dozes off at times. In a few minutes the man stretches out on the floor. I realize that his pants are down and that the prosthesis is made of wood. A nurse carefully lifts him, puts him back in the chair and covers his private parts with a green towel. The man groans, I would say in German. A few minutes later he gets out of the chair again. The staff on the floor stretch him out on a bed. The man says unintelligible things. Or maybe it's that no one understands German.
Meanwhile, in the background, a doctor, who seems young, is heard explaining to an American couple the problems they have detected in the woman. He goes to great lengths in his explanations. He speaks English well. I wonder if this doctor has been to the United States studying or working and if he misses technical conversations in this language. I try to return to Andreu Nin, who has already arrived in Barcelona and is beginning to frequent the cultural circles of the capital. Suddenly I hear voices coming from the entrance. A girl of about thirty tries to stop what seems to be her father, she says dad, wait. The man, in pajamas and a dressing gown, has run out of patience and says he's leaving. With bad manners, he pushes his daughter, who, desperate, tries to convince him that for his own good he should remain in the emergency room. The virulence with which the desperate man acts alerts the healthcare staff and a group of three tries to help the daughter reason with the man. He also seems disoriented, as he moves forward pushing everyone aside in the opposite direction to the exit. Over the loudspeaker, it is the fourth or fifth time that the support team is called. An elegant way to call security. During the hours I've been here, and it's already seven thirty, they have been called from almost all emergency floors. One more example of the tension with which our healthcare staff works. In the end, the man who wanted to leave ends up stretched out on a bed, screaming and asking for help. The daughter cries. And the foreigner without a leg in front of me lets out an incomprehensible litany in German. Our doctor's explanations in English continue in the background. And more people keep arriving.
"Over the loudspeaker, it is the fourth or fifth time that the support team is called. An elegant way to call security. During the hours I've been here, and it's already seven thirty, they have been called from almost all emergency floors. One more example of the tension with which our healthcare staff works"At eight o'clock at night I speak with the person responsible for administration and tell her that I am only there to make a query, if I can speak for three minutes with a nurse. She tells me yes, to wait a moment. I wait and return to Andreu Nin. Around nine, a nurse appears. I explain my case to her. And she tells me that I'd better wait, that I only have one person ahead of me and the doctor wants to see me. Agreed.
A lady greets me. She is a neighbor from Sants, in fact, she lives one street away from mine and tells me that she often sees me leaving home. She asks me what we politicians will do to fix this. My answer is clear. I haven't held any office for nine years, but this is very difficult to solve. We have an increasingly aging population and increasingly meager budgets. She explains that her mother is there, that they want to take her to Platón. A headache for someone from Sants to have to go to the upper area. The Clínic, from Sants, is only a few metro stops away. I wish her luck and encouragement for her mother's stay in the upperdiagonal.
"This is very difficult to solve. We have an increasingly aging population and increasingly meager budgets"I hear the gentleman who wanted to flee a few hours ago grumbling in the background. It's ten at night. And Andreu Nin has already arrived in Moscow! At half past ten they tell me to go to a box.They undress me, give me the classic gown, and I stretch out on the bed in the box. In twenty minutes, the doctor arrives. He is Chinese but speaks perfect Catalan. Either he was schooled here or he proves that whoever doesn't speak Catalan is because they don't want to. The doctor knows what's going on and tells me he wants to rule out pneumonia, a bad thing in times of pandemic. X-ray, that is, radiography, and blood test. And if everything is fine, home.Ipso factoa nurse comes in and takes me to get the x-ray. The x-ray room is on the same floor and in a few minutes I'm back in the box. In front of me, the doctor gives a nurse the paper with my history and tells her that the blood test is missing. The nurse throws up her hands and says that there's a shift change now and that she'll have to wait for the new team. We'll have to wait then. Andreu Nin is already one of the top leaders of the Red International of Labor Unions. An unthinkable achievement for the shoemaker's son from El Vendrell. My neighbor from Sants passes in front of me, accompanied by two doctors, and they tell her that her mother is ill and that she should prepare for the worst. The open system of the boxes in an open-plan room allows everything to be heard.
The new shift arrives, a determined nurse introduces herself to me, her name is Ester, and she immediately boos the doctors for not leaving the reports in their place. She's probably right. She must have been doing the job for years and her experience shows. She puts the IV in my left hand. As we were saying, I don't feel the prick or the blood draw. Nurse Ester orders me to be moved to another box. Now I'm in front of the table of the doctor who attended me and another doctor. They are facing away. I see from afar that on their computer screen there is what looks like my history. They talk about the foreign man who was at the entrance. It seems he is a homeless person that social services brought to the emergency room because his amputated leg hurts. The doctors comment loudly among themselves about what to do. They don't quite know how to approach it. Nin receives journalists Josep Pla and Eugeni Xammar in Moscow. It's midnight.
"The new shift arrives, a determined nurse introduces herself to me, her name is Ester, and she immediately boos the doctors for not leaving the reports in their place. She's probably right. She must have been doing the job for years and her experience shows. She puts the IV in my left hand. As we were saying, I don't feel the prick or the blood draw"Finally, the doctor appears and tells me that in half an hour I can go home because everything is fine. He prescribes codeine for my cough and says they will give me a dose before I leave. I wait and continue reading the adventures of our anarcho-syndicalist in Koba's fiefdom, as they called Stalin. The man in the bed in the box next to mine groans in pain. Pla, Xammar and his wife are going to make rice at the Dacha that Nin occupied on the outskirts of Moscow, accompanied by Soviet leaders and intellectuals. They try to make a paella. Pla describes the culinary disaster, which is eventually fixed with vodka. At a quarter to one I am discharged.But they don't give me the dose of codeine they promised me to start fighting the cough. I think they are already quite overwhelmed and that I will go buy it at the pharmacy.The overcrowding situation in the emergency room makes you immediately empathize with the medical staff.Despite a nurse commenting that no one had been admitted for covid that day.
The next morning I went to the pharmacy and asked for Couldina. I took one dissolved in water with desperate speed, tired of so much coughing. I made a mistake. The doctor had prescribed codeine, that is, Codeisan, and I had asked for the wrong product. And on top of that, it made me feel sick. At night, my wife, who reads everything, made me realize the error. If it hadn't been for her, the nine hours in the emergency room at Clínic would have been for nothing, except to learn about the intense life of Andreu Nin and the intense life of hospital emergency rooms. Andreu Nin and I would fully agree that Barcelona is immensely lucky to have a Hospital like Clínic and its people.