Healthcare in safe hands
“I don’t think about what could happen but about helping people”
Spain women’s handball team player, Laura Hernández is also a nurse in Elche.
THE SPANISH national women’s handball team player, Laura Hernández is also a nurse in Elche but has no fear of being on the front line against the coronavirus because she regards it as her vocation and it enables her to help people, she told state news agency EFE.
The 22-year-old, who is from Elche and finished her nursing studies last summer, works in the city’s general hospital intensive care unit (UCI), where she is in direct contact with infected people.
“In this area we are isolated from the rest,” she said. “I am not scared for myself, but for my family. When I started to work I went to live alone in a flat belonging to my sister in order to avoid any infection.”
Laura explained that the situation there is ‘apparently under control, because there is still space and there are no shortages in materials as it seems is happening in other centres’.
“I don’t think about what could happen but about helping people,” she assured, but admitted that there are some really emotional moments, such as ‘when a patient is discharged or an extubation is performed’. She insisted it is ‘not bad at all’ that this has been her first professional experience and played down the role of people’s heroes that society has given health workers during this crisis.
“It is true that the people have really got behind us, but when this ends everything will go back to normal. A pat on the back, congratulations and keep working,” she said, and asked everyone to follow the preventative measures.
“Safety is most important,” explained Laura. “If at any moment anyone has symptoms, they should call the specially set up numbers. If the symptoms are not serious, stay calm and isolate yourself in the house because people usually get better.”
She appreciated that the downward trend in infections has been encouraging but warned that ‘there is still a lot of fighting ahead’.
“Unfortunately there are still more people who will get infected and have to go through this,” she stated.
Laura also plays for the Elche handball club and last season was chosen as best player in the Guerreras Iberdrola league and best athlete in the municipality, but she keeps her status as an elite sportswoman quiet while at work.
“Only the odd colleague knows about it, I’m just another worker,” she said.
While she is not at work she is keeping up with training at home so as not to lose fitness.
“I spoke with the trainer to fit the sessions around my hours at the hospital and I try to do things as well as possible,” she added, but before she can rejoin the team she will have to spend time in quarantine because she has been exposed to the virus.