CAMAGÜEY.- It is no coincidence that I need the assistance of Dr. Leosvel Pérez Gutiérrez, a doctor from the Vertientes municipality, in this province, and a member of the Henry Reeve International Contingent, made up of Cuban Health personnel Specialized in Disaster Situations and Serious Epidemics. The issue of biosafety (it deals with the prevention and control of biological risk in people who are exposed, directly or indirectly) is one of the most mentioned in times of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19, because it is an act that decides.
“We arrived in Mexico on December 14 and de were placed in the adapted hospital in a military unit called Chivatito in Mexico City. Other colleagues work in various hospitals here. We make up a group of 500 professionals including doctors and nursing staff.
Thus began our exchange, via the Internet, and he told us: “We have been working together with Mexican personnel for two months and we strictly comply with the protocols indicated by the health authorities of this country. We work rotating shifts of six hours a day and basically serve an intermediate therapy room with 30 patients. We monitor the evolution of those admitted, both confirmed and suspected. We are aware of their vital parameters, oxygenation and vital signs, we interpret the complementary tests and coordinate the transfer to intensive care of cases that become complicated.
"In these cases we play a very active role, he added, because most of the time we have to go up or down the stairs due to lack of elevators in this institution, patient care is comprehensive, we help them eat, we help them to do their physiological needs, since in the beginning they cannot get up from their beds and as it is known that they have no companions, and we offer respiratory physiotherapy (percussion fist), just to mention a few actors and our experience has allowed us to guide many colleagues who have faced this type of eventuality for the first time ”.
Dr. Leosvel accompanied by Osiris, the Mexican already recovered.
Among the greatest satisfactions of him Pérez Gutiérrez mentioned: "We enjoy when we discharge patients who after several days admitted manage to recover, without a doubt, it is our greatest joy."
“Osiris was one of the people who left us a note of farewell and gratitude that we interpret is for all the personnel involved in her care, not only to me, and not only to her, but also to her mother, who returned home a few days before".
OSIRIS TEXT:
Dr. Leo:
I am very happy to go home today, I thank you for helping me, whenever I spoke with you at least briefly, I felt calm, at peace, sure that I was in the best hands.
I am happy to have the opportunity to see you and to leave this note the morning before I go.
I will never forget this experience, it has been very hard for my whole family.
But thanks to you, today I can fulfill the dream of returning home and being with them.
I will always remember you with a lot of admiration, respect and affection.
I wish that your life is full of happiness and fulfillment.
Thanks for saving my life
With love, Osiris
“Encouragingly,” he commented, “we were able to appreciate that with the care offered there are fewer and fewer patients and both our ward and the intensive care ward are the ones with the best results in terms of survival of those hospitalized. We have managed to discharge people with a long stay and with more than 40 days of care that we have also offered them respiratory rehabilitation exercises, something very effective since the beginning of this disease to avoid complications, mainly pulmonary fibrosis ”.
For his extensive experience with epidemics such as Ebola fever, in Sierra Leone, Africa, and the COVID pandemic- 19, in Crema, an Italian city in Lombardy, and faced with the same virus now in Mexico, even in other internationalist missions such as Guatemala from 2006 to 2008; in Venezuela in 2010; and in Equatorial Guinea from 2016 to 2018, countries where they sometimes know of eradicated diseases in Cuba, we wanted to know, how do you think the biosafety standards for health personnel; first, in the well-known Red Zone; and second, in a general way? That is, how does your psyche work in this sense?
“We prepare ourselves psychologically to face this job in very difficult situations and in this sense the cold weather has helped us a little to withstand the individual protective suit. Of course, to face Ebola it was more hermetic and the African climate was hot, that's why I assimilated the work here in a better way, although the suffocation we experience in the first minutes is always very unpleasant, but for obvious safety reasons we tolerate it little by little ”.
And he added: “It is very important to follow the steps meticulously during the act of dressing and undressing, and thus the gaps for a possible contagion are avoided. Comply with the use of all means of protection, such as gloves, face masks, masks and caps and very importantly washing hands every time you touch a piece or contaminated object or that you suspect it is. All of great interest, just as when leaving the Red Zone.
“Do not forget to properly dispose of the media and sanitize the shoes well in the retaining walls with chlorine. When going out, it is important to change clothes and take a bath immediately and to avoid inviolably touching your mouth, eyes or nose before bathing ”.
Dr. Leosvel also pointed out: “In general, medical personnel must take extreme measures that we know because they are more exposed to any patient and because of the risk of spreading the infection to other patients as well as to our own family. The use of a face mask and masks is vital for medical care for any person. Frequent hand hygiene and ensuring social distancing that is so difficult for us. We have to internalize the need to avoid the greeting as we used to and the protection of the mouth when coughing or sneezing, things that we already know and are breached daily ”.
When asked about the usefulness of taking into account such "insignificant" details such as the care and disinfection of items of your use such as a pen, stethoscope, sphygmus (to measure blood pressure), the patient's medical history ..., He detailed: “At all times the means for work in the red zone must remain inside the room and not take them out of there to avoid contamination and spread of the virus. If necessary, they should be disinfected with alcoholic or chlorinated solutions, such as eyeglasses, pens, among others ”.
On the post-pandemic biosecurity of Health workers, Leosvel Pérez is sure that: “The epidemic outbreak is, without a doubt, a generalized alert for the world and many of the protection measures must be well established to avoid this and other viral diseases that will be the most common in this century. Biosafety protocols must be effectively complied with in laboratories, consultations and at all levels of care because we are continually exposed to different pathogens that can make us sick and they can be fatal, both to us and to the rest of the personnel around us ”.
Something fundamental for this doctor lies in: “This whole situation makes us proceed with an immense quota of sacrifice and responsibility for our care and for our own family. Life imposes unimaginable challenges on us, accompanied by a will without limits and this is one of those cases and, in turn, gives us strength to remain at the center of this type of terrible disease that disrupts our daily balance.
This dignified Cuban, father of five children who are waiting for him, once again together with Yania, his wife, once again stated, even under very stressful working conditions, what Cuba is capable of contributing towards humanity. Hence the beginning when I assured that it was no coincidence to go to my interviewee, who stressed:
“Once I told you - referring to a previous interview - that we are slaves of our profession and of humanity Camaguey and what I feared when we faced Ebola today we suffer it in Cuba as in the rest of the world, therefore that mission marked a before and after in my life and in the rest of the comrades who continue to battle before the call of the Homeland in such difficult moments, that is why I am sure that our country is committed to life even beyond our borders.
- Translated by Linet Acuña Quilez