Filipino nurses: The world's frontliners vs the coronavirus

MANILA, Philippines – Life seemed normal, until it wasn’t. Headlines blasted a new coronavirus had been spreading in places across the world and after weeks of sticking to daily routines, the virus covered over 190 countries and territories.

But normal has long been gone. Since the outbreak started, they have been handling 20 to 30 people. Staffers had to place patients in the hallways, resting them on wheelchairs or laying them down on stretchers over cold, tiled floors.One of the nurses in the Policlinico’s intensive care unit was Divina Guerrero, a bespectacled 53-year-old Filipina and mother of two, who, like her colleagues, never saw the virus coming.

"I cannot back out because when I stood there as the sick arrived, I saw my family in them. My body was shaking, I was having goosebumps with what was happening to them. Whatever happens, if they were my family, I would not back out," she said. Every 3 pm and 8 pm, they said their vigils through Facebook, praying for the crisis to end. When the Vatican broadcasts an online mass, they watched together.

"We are here knowing that we are not exactly taking care of fellow Filipinos. We are taking care of people from different races. We do not turn away anyone, we do not turn away anyone all over the world," she said.Monique Santos, 34, considers herself as one of the lucky ones. She works as a nurse in a prepared hospital in a prepared country: Singapore.

Monique worked at the isolation tent steps away from the door of their hospital. The tent housed only two beds. Suspected COVID patients were not meant to stay there, Monique explained, because they would have to be turned over as quickly as possible to the Ministry of Health , limiting their contact with other people.

"I am not afraid because COVID-19 is not the worst infectious disease that I have handled. The problem with COVID, for some reason, it became a pandemic, maybe because it was so infectious," she said, explaining that HIV-AIDS was far deadlier."I am not afraid. Why? Because we have adequate PPE," she added.

There, she saw how people without money could die without treatment, pushing nurses like her to pay for their medicine. She also knows what it was like to keep patients in corridors because there were no beds available.

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