But they didn’t improve either, they stayed the same? Or did some kind of camaraderie develop under those conditions?
No, honestly, we were already a good group before. If anything, I saw the impact more on my coordinator, who really had a mental collapse after COVID. Probably people who have worked for many years in the same way, and then suddenly face all these changes when they are close to retirement, experience it as a major trauma. I saw that much more in my coordinator than among nurses, healthcare assistants, or doctors. She was the one who suffered the most.
But did more unity develop, or not?
Yes, but we were already a good group. I didn’t see people drifting apart or things getting worse. The group stayed strong both before and after. Thankfully, we got through it well. That helped us a lot on a mental level.
The last question I’ll ask you today is: is COVID still something that stays in your mind? You don’t talk about it every day over coffee, I imagine. It’s probably something you avoid.
When a patient still has a fever, the first thing people ask for is a COVID test. I honestly can’t stand hearing about it anymore. I’m fed up. Masks, too, we’ve had enough of them. That’s true. By now, I think it’s a condition that we’ve learned how to manage, and there shouldn’t be all this alarmism anymore. Actually, now the problem is influenza A that’s going around, which is causing a massacre among the elderly.
But yes, let’s say we’re completely fed up with COVID. When they say there’s a COVID-positive patient downstairs and they need to be put in isolation, it’s like, oh my god, what a mess. It really takes away your will to deal with it. We’re tired of even hearing the word.
After those years, it’s something people have tried to move away from. I’ve become intolerant of masks myself, for example. Maybe it’s a reaction, I don’t know, I can’t stand them anymore. It’s not something you actively think about. When it comes up, you’ve had enough, but it’s not something you think about every day when you wake up.
On the contrary, I try not to think about it. I practically never think about it anymore, thankfully. More than anything, I avoid thinking about it.