A doctor wrote to me a week ago to ask me to write a few words for his grandmother, who paid me, he said.
He told me that she followed my articles and read them to his grandmother and mother.
And that she said (from the depths of the peninsula)... "that girl from the Canary Islands seems to write looking at the sea".
I liked what his grandmother said so much that I couldn't refuse. Not only did I not accept his money, it was a real gift for me.
(I found the photo and it seemed perfect for the moment, even if it's not them, I imagine them like this)
"Letter from a doctor to his grandmother"
Not long ago you liked to hold my hand to cross the street. And now I'm the one who would like to give it to you.
Every time I enter and leave the hospital, I call you, you say that I am going to war and that on top of that we are at a disadvantage because the enemy does not even show himself.
You have gone through bad times, dictatorships of the "better to be quiet" type, wars of the "tanks in the streets" type, Welfare State with pension cuts that end up leaving you with "discomfort" and now a 2.0 war whose army we cannot even see, hear or touch.
You don't know any other concept than fighting, and now you tell me that I am your soldier and that I should be strong, that I have a lifetime to see pass.
That every day the hospital is my battlefield and that you pray until I return the call that I have left work.
I have been wanting to write you a letter for a long time, to give you a clear message. So underline with a pencil, as you like, what I want to tell you;
"Grandma, dying is not part of my job, but as the hardest part of my job is seeing people die, we cannot avoid fighting even if it costs us our lives."
People can't imagine what we've been through these months. Just recently we toasted on a New Year's Eve shift for a great 2020. And now, after months, we only want that toast to pass with the guarantee that we have done everything we could do in these conditions.
Because there will be no worse torture than knowing that we were not up to the task.
The truth is that they have sent us to war with a magic wand, but the same thing would have happened a few years ago. Because the belief that healthcare is magical has been around for a long time. And nothing is magical if it is not taken care of.
Politics has treated us badly. And with the same hands that applaud us, they have dared to cut us all these years.
How much is a doctor worth? Well, I don't know... what I do know is that life depends on it.
A year ago no one remembered our names, now it's all applause and "long live quality healthcare".
If all this serves so that healthcare and healthcare workers can take all the applause from 8:00 p.m. these months and transfer them to an account destined to improve public healthcare, both in terms of PPE and also in terms of improving our working conditions, then yes, I applaud the applause.
If not, the applause will only remain a beautiful memory as a transitory anthem that, like everything else, will pass into oblivion.
I haven't been able to see you for more than two months grandma, I know I owe you many hugs...
But I hope you wait for me so we can give them to each other in peace.
Amalia M. Fajardo
