Health workers in Brazil describe 'war scene' by covid

"I killed my mother": Xuxa seeks to raise awareness about covid-19 1:36

São Paulo (CNN) -

While Brazil registers new records of cases and deaths from covid-19, some health workers are barely able to resist.

A nurse in São Paulo told CNN that he had to help remove an elderly covid-19 patient from a ventilator, knowing it could be a death sentence, because there was not enough for everyone.

A paramedic in the same city recounted the day the oxygen supply to an entire intensive care unit (ICU) suddenly failed, threatening to let intubated patients suffocate as he ran to pump air into their lungs.

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Here are their stories, told to CNN's Matt Rivers and Marcia Reverdosa.

Luis: 'It was sad, very sad, a scene of war'

“I came to my turn and had barely changed when I got a call about the oxygen equipment failure.

There was oxygen supply but it was not reaching the patients and so there was a rush to try to get oxygen from other places.

«I gave them the two oxygen cylinders that I had in my ambulance.

And then I contacted my headquarters to see if there were other ambulances that could give their cylinders.

But still it was not enough.

So we sent a convoy to another hospital to fetch more oxygen cylinders.

We came back with 8 more oxygen cylinders and it was crazy to install them and try to get the patients out.

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“Then we managed to transfer some of the patients, but unfortunately, there were deaths.

We lost lives, I can't say how many.

“Before we could turn on the oxygen, the staff had started to oxygenate the patients manually, by hand.

I am very grateful for the team that day.

Without a doubt, his effort saved lives that day.

“It was sad, very sad, a scene of war.

I am someone who has already experienced covid, I was close to being intubated.

So, it was sad to see what I saw, I can't really describe what I saw there, but it is very sad what is happening to our country.

It wasn't just that Monday, it's like that every day.

“We are seeing all this happen and we do not know what is happening or who is to blame.

No one can be blamed, the virus is here and we have to learn to live with it.

“It has been really complicated, I got sick with covid-19, I was hospitalized and I have long-term effects to this day.

And my work never stops.

It has been three or four months since I started working again and I am still in pain, both physically and seeing the pain and suffering of the people here.

Editor's Note: At this point, Luis begins to cry softly.

He pauses to compose himself.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but it hurts, it hurts, it hurts.

There is this cycle of taking a patient to a hospital and then the hearse comes to fetch another body.

It hurts too much.

Those who look from the outside do not understand or cannot even imagine what we are going through.

Our situation is critical, we are extremely overwhelmed.

“That Monday [when the oxygen supply failed] I took three showers.

I took two during my shift and one before I left so I could go home and try to hug my kids. "

- Luis Eduardo Pimentel, paramedic of the Emergency Ambulance Service of the City of São Paulo, Brazil

Images of the collapse of hospitals by covid-19 3:55

'We are scared to see someone who looks like us die so quickly from this disease'

“I work in the ER and there are seven beds.

This week there were 14 patients inside and 10 of them were intubated.

Now we have converted the room where we store the medicines into a room as well.

“We are medicating patients in the corridor because there is no other place to accommodate them.

And then there are other patients in the hallways waiting for beds.

Every time a patient leaves, there are already two or three more waiting for a bed.

The situation is really difficult.

“I have been in this unit for a year and four months and I have never experienced what we are experiencing today, not even during the first wave.

In the first wave we were more than prepared, we were able to transfer patients.

But in this second wave it seems that it took everyone by surprise and I don't know why.

“It is an absurd number of cases and not only the elderly, or people with comorbidities, there are much younger people, in the age group of 28 to 33 to 40 years, who are entering severe states and need to be intubated, and unfortunately they are losing their lives due to covid-19.

Yesterday a 30-year-old woman died as soon as she arrived at the unit.

It scares us to see someone who looks like us die so quickly from this disease.

• READ: «I killed my mother»: Xuxa's strong message to raise awareness about the covid-19 crisis in Brazil

«There was an episode in which we had to decide between two people: we had an intubated patient who had already been in the unit for 10 days with a poor prognosis, with no visible possibility of improvement, and we also had a younger patient who was otherwise healthy and without comorbidities.

“We did not have a ventilator [for the youngest patient].

So the medical director had to choose to extubate this older patient in order to intubate the younger one.

It was a difficult decision for the doctor.

But… we understood that this would be the norm now.

“We knew this could mean the death of that patient.

Extubate a patient means that the health system abandoned him, basically just to make him feel comfortable until he passed away.

During my shift, he was still alive, but I don't know what happened next.

- An emergency care nurse in Brazil, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

(CNN followed up this weekend; the older patient is still alive.)

These interviews have been slightly edited for length.

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