More than five months has passed Ángel Rodríguez de Guzmán, 70, admitted to the intensive care unit of the Gregorio Marañón hospital because of the coronavirus. He is the person in Spain who has been hospitalized for the longest time in intensive care units for this pathology. But he has just received the transfer to the plant, after the 158 days that it has cost him to make negative the covid-19. Ángel is an especially vulnerable patient, suffering from a previous heart disease, the center says in a statement.
He arrived on March 17 and, two days later, one of the Marañón ICUs had to be transferred, at that time to the Coronary Unit that was enabled as an intensive care unit. After a few weeks, he went to the hospital's own medical ICU, where he remained until his transfer to the ward for improvement. In his case, the virus caused Ángel to suffer from bilateral pneumonia, with great respiratory difficulties that made him need mechanical ventilation and tracheostomy and deep sedation.
The seriousness of his condition made him fear for his life, so the center allowed access to his family in April so they could say goodbye to him. It was the only time they have been able to see him in all this time. His relatives received a call a day informing them of his condition. · They said he was in serious condition but they did not know under what conditions he was going to leave, ”recalls his daughter, Cristina Rodríguez. During this time in the Marañón, he has managed to wake up and maintain a certain stability in his evolution.
“For us it is an immense satisfaction that a patient who has been in the ICU for so long and in such a critical situation can go to the ward. But Ángel is a particular case, not all patients end up like his because not all are capable of overcoming such a serious pathology ", says Dr. Alexis Jaspe, doctor of the Intensive Care Unit of the Hospital Gregorio Marañón, for whom Ángel" has won a battle, but not the war, "he says. “It is the prototype of a patient with a long stay in the ICU, with a motor disorder, which leaves him in a situation of not being able to move practically, and a psychological disorder, with a significant distress situation. That is why the psychiatric support of the unit has also been important ”.
To help Ángel in his recovery, the Hospital Gregorio Marañón has the Covid Post-ICU Patient Care Program, in which he receives multidisciplinary care from the services of Internal Medicine, Pulmonology, Rehabilitation, Endocrinology, Psychiatry, Infectious Diseases, Geriatrics, Intensive Care and Anesthesia and Resuscitation Unit, Cardiology and nursing to attend to the physical and psychological needs derived from such a long stay in the ICU, with a personalized approach and providing continuity of care to the entire clinical process of the patients.