CAMAGÜEY.- For our medicine students, the COVID-19 pandemic imposed an unprecedented challenge. For a year they have carried out investigations en masse to every corner of the Cuban geography, looking for the symptoms of a virus that takes lives every day in the world; however, given the rebound in the pandemic in Camagüey territory, they have assumed other tasks in the Red Zone.

One of these students is Dannelly Espinosa Yero, who is training as a future doctor in 2nd. year of the University of Medical Sciences of Camagüey Carlos J. Finlay. About her experiences as volunteer in the isolation center located at the Pham Ngoc Thach Nursing School, she comments, while she waits to perform a second PCR that restores her healthy to society.

- How did you come to be a volunteer in an isolation center?

–My contribution to the fight against COVID-19 began with the investigations, but since March 11 of this year I changed my “trench”. The FEU Secretariat for Medical Sciences made a call to volunteer at the isolation centers. I accepted and went to collaborate at the School of Nursing. Vulnerable people are isolated there, with risk factors such as age, pregnant women, young children, contacts of positive cases.

–Who did you share work with during this time?

- I think it was fortunate to work accompanied by an excellent team, made up of a doctor, a nurse, a graduate in Dentistry and, of course, a cleaning assistant. I really did win a family in all that time.

- And your family, the one you left at home? What did they say?

–That is a separate issue, because it was the first time I left home, but everyone supported me when I came to collaborate. The first days were difficult, because I missed them so much, but they always told me to be strong, which was an injection of energy. I think that collaborating here is also a way of taking care of them.

- What motivated you to, as you say yourself, change the trench?

-When the pandemic began in the country, a year ago, I felt like a "bug" asking me to do something else. I realized that I needed to help people who were affected in one way or another by the virus. In addition, I consider that it is a way of being useful to society. It is really the historical moment that I have had to live and I have to be in correspondence with what the current times demand of me.

- What did your work routine basically consist of?

–In these centers you learn to do a little bit of everything. I got up around 6:00 a.m. every day and distributed breakfast to patients. Then I would help with any logistics task, prepare parts and even communicate them. In itself, my mission was pantrist, but I did not leave aside any topic of medicine, to take advantage of it in my training.

-What positive did this work leave you in relation to the career you are studying?

- I learned to be more human, to put myself in the place of others, a basic lesson for all Health personnel, as well as to value teamwork. For the academic year that I was studying, I was not allowed to enter visiting passes, but I memorized from theory all the procedure that is carried out in practice. I reaffirmed some content that the University teaches and ensures the safety of my colleagues, which translates directly into my safety. This time was really a school for my training as a future professional and every day I became more convinced that I was not wrong when choosing Medicine as my future.

–What feedback have you obtained from your patients?

–The variety of the character of our patients has no limits, but the message that came to me the most was when they told me: “continue like this, you will be a good doctor, you will be one of the doctors who just by talking to the patients will heal". You don't know what comforts that until you experience it.

- Do you keep a special memory, a moment that will mark your stay?

–There are many experiences, but one marked me in a special way. It is about a girl who initially only had to spend two days in the center, but the picture changed when her mother and her little brother were positive, so she was isolated with her grandmother and her great-grandmother. At first she was afraid of the doctors, but on the third day she called me to give her a snack. She said the grandmother that since she was there she ate even more than usual. She played with me with a window in the middle, and her innocence marked me a lot, because although she did not see my face, I felt that it helped her to be there. I am not going to deny you that the day the negative PCR result arrived I felt happy, but at the same time sad because I fell in love with her, even though I could never (due to security measures) not even hug her.

–What experience can you transmit to those young people from other sectors who are interested in collaborating in the Red Zone, but are afraid of contagion?

-If I could define my time as a volunteer in one word, it would be dedication. Anyone who wants to contribute their grain of sand only has to comply with the protection measures, when the first patients are discharged and they let you know how grateful they are for our common sacrifice, that fear simply disappears completely.

Translated by Linet Acuña Quilez