Roberto. Bergamo, Italy

Family doctor.

“That February 21, 2020 we dressed our girls in carnival costumes, ready to spend a cheerful weekend full of joy with grandparents and families of festive children. Then something torn apart. The frost and dismay on our faces, we knew that the world as we knew it would no longer be there. We said goodbye to our families knowing that grandparents and grandchildren would not see each other for a long time. We could not have predicted that a terrible greeting would repeat thousands and thousands of times between patients leaving for the hospital and their families. Since then a mantra has accompanied us, long and lugubrious leaden thunder. Today I am here, general practitioner of the Bergamo province, now returned home after the working day. My day starts at 7.00 am, I don’t know when it ends. I do 20 home visits on average, all patients suspected of having covid-19. In eight weeks I have made about 800 visits. I have hospitalized 10. I have no words because I have spent all the words for my patients, I have no tears because I have no time or space to let the pain evaporate, I only have anger and happiness left in knowing my family is alive. We have spent terrible weeks, fighting against the disease and in the difficulty of finding basic necessities, including oxygen, protections, drugs; collapsed hospitals and difficult-to-find ambulances. The lock down has helped us, now the situation has found a pseudo-normal dimension. However, the long wave of the tsunami flows undeterred”.