Miguel García has been sitting on a bench for an hour and a half.
His grandson accompanies him.
In front of them is the San Ignacio hospital, on the campus of the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana.
They wait devotedly for a relative who is inside, on one of the nine floors of the building with a brick facade, while “they perform some tests.”
When he lifts his mask to speak, Miguel reveals the sweat accumulated on his mustache.
“I arrived and it was worse.
I felt suffocated,” he says.
He is referring to the heat, smoke and ash caused by the fire that has consumed a portion of the eastern hills of Bogotá since last Monday.
“It burns to see, the eyes burn,” he complains.
One of the fires, the strongest, is about 600 meters up the slope.
It's Thursday noon and there are much fewer people than usual.
Nearly 18,000 students are at home after the rector of Javeriana, Jesuit Luis Fernando Múnera, ordered that classes be held virtually “with the purpose of taking care of the health of the entire community.”
Initially, the measure would only apply on Thursday, but it was later extended to Friday and Saturday.
The absence of people is confirmed by the little traffic on Carrera Septima, one of the main roads in the city, which borders the educational institution.
There is little noise.
The smoke that comes down from El Cable hill, however, prevents the atmosphere from being peaceful.
The windows on the top floor of the hospital - closed on the recommendation of the Pulmonology Unit - reveal two sources of smoke and one of flames on the mountain.
At that moment, the helicopters that have helped mitigate the flames, spraying hundreds of gallons of water, are not seen.
The situation is much calmer than the previous day, Wednesday, when the fire affected the hospital's power supply.
Although the provision of vital services to patients was never at risk, doctor Gabriela París says that for a short period a contingency plan was activated to manually attend to some processes, such as the formulation of medications.
For almost half of her six-hour shift, she did not have access to the digital platform they use for this and other matters.
“Fortunately, there was little we were able to do on paper.
It didn't take long for the light to return and we were able to continue functioning normally,” she points out.
The use of masks, which seemed to have been overcome with the end of the pandemic, returned to the hospital.
Some medical staff, easy to spot by their colorful uniforms, briefly remove their N95s to catch their breath as they move down the stairs.
The building is old, from 1946, but it has managed to remain current.
It is the place of rotations for students of the Faculty of Medicine, considered one of the best in the country, and hosts 300 research projects annually.
People wear face masks outside the hospital, this January 25. Andrés Galeano
One of its main researchers is pulmonologist Alejandra Cañas, director of the Department of Internal Medicine.
She has been in Bogotá for 25 years, after moving from her native Pereira, in the Coffee Region.
She lives in Chapinero, the same town as the hospital, and she admits that she has never witnessed a fire like the one these days.
“I took this photo in my apartment.
Look at how the hill was, much worse than today,” she says while she shows the screen of her cell phone.
In the image you can see long flames and an endless trail of smoke.
She highlights the risks that this emergency can generate in people who have lung diseases.
“Mountain incineration carries a lot of particulate matter.
After the skin, the most exposed are the respiratory tract,” she adds.
Reinaldo Grueso has been the scientific director of the hospital for six years.
He says that he is a Javeriano—as graduates of the Javeriana University are known—to die and conveys tranquility, although in his office the smell of burning can be perceived.
In his opinion, the coordination that the district Administration has had with the different hospital centers has been key.
Mayor Carlos Fernando Galán, who has been in office for less than a month, declared an alert in certain sectors of the city and, seeking to avoid a worsening of air quality, extended the mobility restriction for cars.
“We receive reports and bulletins from them [the Mayor's Office] constantly.
We work in an articulated manner,” he asserts.
The first floor of the hospital is designated for the emergency service.
Moving from one place to another takes practice.
In the hallways—which at times seem like a labyrinth—nurses, orderlies, students, doctors, companions and patients coincide, some on a stretcher or in a wheelchair.
The sun can shine through the windows, but they do not allow you to see what is happening outside.
In a small corner room, Adriana León, a management nurse, admits that she is bothered by the smell and by her curiosity to know if the flames were controlled.
“Today I walked from the Transmilenio station, on Caracas Avenue, to here and there was too much smoke,” she says.
Like Dr. Cañas, she provides a photograph of her phone as evidence.
Patients walk the corridors of the San Ignacio Hospital, on January 25. Andrés Galeano
Accompanying her is Rafael Castellanos, emergency specialist.
He insists that no one directly affected by the fires has arrived at San Ignacio.
“The closest thing we received was two people who fell from a tree because they wanted to see how the fire was advancing from a distance.”
He points out that the hospital's air system is designed “to remove air, instead of putting it in,” which helps reduce the dangers for patients with respiratory diseases.
The fire may disrupt the operation of the El Dorado airport, the second air terminal that moves the most passengers in South America;
semi-paralyze education in dozens of colleges and universities, and lead to emergency measures.
But, except for the mandatory use of masks, the dynamics at the San Ignacio hospital are as usual.
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