How many nurses work in Spain?
We are 330,000, 85% of us women.
What distinguishes the good nurse?
Smile. Smile and laughter heal.
Why is he a nurse?
I dreamed of being an astronaut. But I remembered how I saved my life: when I was two years old I suffered from typhoid fever and was saved from death in a hospital ICU.
Hence your vocation?
I also loved being taken to the pediatrician, and seeing the syringes...
Could have been a pediatrician.
No one is as close to the patient as the nurse. And that's what I wanted.
And how long have you been a nurse?
Ten years. I started in hospice care. Hard and rewarding: I felt that I could help a lot. Especially in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
What was he doing there?
Moisturize skin, clean buttocks, turn on your side in bed, do tests, put on respirators, administer medications... And you can also support family members...
Are you thinking of a case?
The wife of a recently deceased old man, knowing that we had to take him down to the morgue, begged me: "Put a blanket on him, it's very chilly."
Poor.
The nurse is an intermediary between the patient and his wife, brother, parents, children. "Take care of me!", they implore you, of course.
Do you remember your first patient?
I was in an ambulance training and they called us from a chalet: the little boy was floating in the pool... We couldn't revive him.
How old were you?
I was 19 years old and the helplessness I felt will never be erased. Although I made up for that the other day, in Barcelona...
What happened?
On the day of Sant Jordi, happy, I signed copies of my book in a booth in L'Illa Diagonal. I heard a stir in the back... I asked my editor...
And it was?
"A child," he told me, "something is wrong with him." I jumped outside. A desperate father and a child choking on a piece of candy... The child was suffocating. Getting behind the boy, I performed the Heimlich maneuver on him.
He pressed his sternum, didn't he?
And he expelled the caramel. I saved the child.
Did you continue signing later?
Yes, and parents and child came, grateful.
Nurse to the rescue.
We are in the delicate moments of people's lives, at birth and at death: we have to clothe them with dignity. It seems beautiful to me to see someone die well.
What does it consist of dying well?
Prepared to leave in peace, with yourself and with the world. I have also seen people die badly, that is, suffering.
How would you improve this profession?
With specialties: emergencies, mental health, work, family, pediatrics, geriatrics... And it would reduce precariousness: 42% of nursing jobs are temporary.
One more idea.
There are 7,200 Spanish nurses abroad because they earn three times more money there than here: let's improve salaries here and they will return. We need them!
He doesn't seem very happy with his job.
I love nursing as much as I deplore its precarious conditions.
What is the worst?
The overload of work per nurse and the low social recognition (which is measured in euros, of course). And being able to take days for your own business without depending on a partner to cover you.
Let's create new places, therefore!
We should: in Spain there are 5.9 nurses per thousand inhabitants. In Germany there are 14 nurses per thousand inhabitants!
How many more nurses do we need, then?
The General Nursing Council estimates that one hundred thousand new nurses would revitalize this trade.
Let the future government read this.
It will do well: Spanish nurses are so competent that we support a health system that does not deserve us.
I have no doubt.
Health professionals from Europe say it: the training of our nurses is the best. It is clear: Spanish nurses are the best in Europe.
And they are witnesses of thousands of anecdotes, like the ones he collects in his books...
And funny most of them. For example: a patient once brought me his stool sample in a container at home...
He must have half understood something.
The good man handed me the container with a plea: "Give it back to me, please."
