‘We are all just doctors trying to fight this tsunami that crashed on us’

‘The war has literally exploded and the battles are relentless, day and night’

‘They have nothing like the problems caused by seasonal flu. They can’t breathe, they need oxygen’

Bergamo, northern Lombardy, is Ground Zero for Italy’s coronavirus crisis. The city has 1,245 positive cases, a number that rose by 248 yesterday. Hospitals are under enormous pressure and doctors are having to make agonising choices about their priorities.

In a post on Facebook, Dr Daniele Macchini of the Humanitas Gavazzeni hospital revealed the immense pressure frontline workers were facing as he warned against public complacency.

His words have been translated and edited for length.

Iunderstand the importance of not generating panic, but the gravity of this situation is not well understood, and I shiver when I hear people saying they don’t care, or complain because they cannot go to the gym or play football.

I myself was shocked to see the total reorganisation of the hospital over the past week: the wards slowly emptied, non-urgent activities interrupted, the intensive care unit given over to make room for more beds.

I remember how I spent my night shift a week ago nervously waiting for a call from the microbiology department waiting for the response of the test on the first suspected case in our hospital, and thinking of the possible consequences for us.

If I think again about that night, now that I see what is going on, my anxiety at a single case seems ludicrous. It is reductive to call the current situation dramatic, but I have no other words. The war has literally exploded and the battles are relentless, day and night.

People show up at the hospital one after the other. They have nothing like the problems caused by seasonal flu. They can’t breathe, they need oxygen.

There aren’t many therapies for this virus. It depends mainly on your body.

What we can do is simply support the body when it can’t keep it up any more. Now we dramatically need those beds. All the emptied wards are being filled again at an incredible pace.

The boards with the name of the patients, with different colours for each different units, are all red and the diagnosis is always the same: bilateral interstitial pneumonia. There are no longer surgeons, urologists, orthopaedists – we are all just doctors trying to fight this tsunami that crashed on us. The number of cases is rising, with 15 or 20 new patients every day for the same reason.

The results of the tests come one after the other: positive, positive, positive. Suddenly, the emergency room is on the brink of collapse.

The symptoms are always the same: high temperature and shortness of breath, high temperature and cough, shortness of breath.

Some need to be intubated and sent to the emergency care unit already. For others, it’s just too late...

The staff are literally exhausted. Social life is suspended for us. For almost two weeks, I voluntarily decided not to see my son or family members, for fear of infecting them and consequently infecting elderly relatives with other health problems.

So, you should be patient too, if you can’t go to the theatre, museums or to the gym. Try to have mercy for all the older people you could exterminate.

We have no alternative [but to be here]. It is our job... in the end we only try to be useful for everyone. Now, try to do it too.

With our actions, we influence the life and death of a few dozen people.

With your actions, you could influence many more.