Spain's surge gives COVID-19 hospital second chance

As Spain struggles with a surge in COVID-19 cases, a new Madrid hospital is seen by many as an extravagant endeavor when it opened in December, is being given a fresh chance to prove its usefulness.

With the spiraling surge of contagion once again placing Spain's public health system against the ropes, the staff at the Nurse Isabel  Zendal Hospital, a project deemed by some as a vanity enterprise, is now tending to several patients.

The facility boasts four pavilions over an area equivalent of around 10 football fields, and looks like a cross between a small airport terminal and an industrial warehouse, with ventilation conducts, medical beds, and state-of-the-art new equipment.

The original project was for some 1,000 beds, roughly half of which have been installed so far. The Zendal, as it's come to be known, opened to competing levels of fanfare and criticism on December 1, just as Spain seemed to ebb a post-summer surge of coronavirus infections. By mid-December, it had only received a handful of patients.

But Spain recorded Monday over 84,000 new COVID-19 infections, the highest increase over a single weekend since the pandemic began.

The country's overall tally is heading to 2.5 million cases while confirmed coronavirus deaths are officially at some 53,000, but excess mortality statistics add over 30,000 deaths unaccounted for, reflecting people who died before being tested or who weren't treated for other ailments.The surge is hard on the heels of similar upticks in other European countries, most notably in the U.K. following the discovery of a new virus variant that early scientific evidence considers highly infectious.

The London Nightingale, part of a network of temporary hospitals across Britain designed to stem off pressure from the regular network, has also reopened there for patients and as a vaccination center. Fernando Prados, Zendal's manager, explains what the hospital's mission is.

"This is a hospital that is prepared to give all the COVID treatment, it is a monographic hospital. Its specific task is to deal with this pathology, this pandemic and the consequences of the pandemic," he said.

Past automatic glass doors, patients recover in modules of 8 beds, leaving little space for privacy but providing better monitoring of possible complications in their recovery, said Veronica Real, whose challenge as the head nurse has been to complete staff teams drawing from other hospitals.

Zendal's managers claim that a modern and intricate ventilation system renews the entire facility's air every 5 minutes, which contributes to a safer environment of work for the medical workers.

Veronica says that the open-plan system of wards also encourages a mutual support system for the patients who are not allowed to be accompanied by their relatives.

But what they are most proud of is the expansion of the so-called intermediate respiratory care unit, where patients may receive varying types of assisted respiration to overcome their lung inflammation.

José Andrés Armada arrived with mild symptoms at the facility after all his family was infected despite what he said was a very careful approach to the pandemic.

But the 63-year-old's health quickly deteriorated and last week was on the brink of being intubated in one of the Zendal's dozen ICU boxes.

"In all truthfulness, I didn't expect this to be so tough," he said.

Another intermediate ward patient, 43-year-old actor Francisco Javier Morales is struggling to breathe despite being given breathing assistance. He is fighting for survival, he says.

The unit's chief, Pedro Landete, says that by an early admission of potentially worsening patients in one of its highly-equipped 50 beds, they are already seeing a lower number of people that require the more demanding intensive care.

The Nurse Isabel Zendal Hospital is named after the 19th-century Spanish nurse who took smallpox vaccination across the Atlantic Ocean.

The facility was built in 100 days at a cost of 130 million euros (157 million US dollars), more than twice the original budget.

(IMAGE CREDITS:AP)