Emilio Morenatti, chief photographer, Barcelona, spent two weeks accompanying home health care workers and emergency medical personnel tending isolated and elderly patients in Spain, some of whom survived Spanish Civil War and now are enduring the new coronavirus. What emerged was exquisite visual storytelling.
When Morenatti learned that a friend was tending to elderly patients confined to home, many of them sick and living alone, he asked to be introduced to the director of her clinic. “I explained that I wanted to make visible the tremendous but invisible work of primary care health workers these days. I asked them to let me go with the nurses during their home visits, as many as possible, and said I also would focus on patients I had been looking for: the most vulnerable victims of this pandemic, the elderly,“ he said.
Jose Marcos, 89, waits at his front door for the nurses who tend to his bedridden wife once a week in Barcelona, Spain, April 7, 2020. Marcos’ son drops off food at the gate, but Marcos doesn't dare go outside on his own for fear he will be infected with the coronavirus.
AP Photo / Emilio Morenatti
Gonzalo Garcia, 61, is examined by emergency medical workers after he suffered severe respiratory problems at his home in Barcelona, Spain, April 6, 2020. Garcia had been hospitalized with COVID-19 but was discharged after he improved, only to deteriorate in recent days. He is terrified that his second hospitalization will again leave his 91-year-old mother home alone.
AP Photo / Emilio Morenatti
Gonzalo Garcia, 61, says goodbye to his 91-year-old mother, Gloria, as he leaves for the hospital after suffering severe respiratory problems at their home in Barcelona, Spain, April 6, 2020. Garcia had been hospitalized with COVID-19 but was discharged when he improved, only to deteriorate a few days later. "I'm drowning, I'm drowning, I can't breathe," he said.
AP Photo / Emilio Morenatti
Nurse Isabel Solis, 46, wearing a converted garbage bag apron for protection, walks along a corridor lined with paintings made by Enrique Pastor, 86, during a home visit in Barcelona, Spain, April 1, 2020. Pastor’s full-time caregiver tested positive for the virus, leaving his wife to care for her bedridden husband without knowing if either of them has COVID-19.
AP Photo / Emilio Morenatti
Surrounded by oils he painted, Enrique Pastor, 86, lies in bed waiting for the doctor to examine him during a home medical visit in Barcelona, Spain, April 1, 2020. Pastor's usual caregiver tested positive for the coronavirus, leaving the bedridden retired port worker home alone with his wife.
AP Photo / Emilio Morenatti
Home care doctors, nurses and health staff take part in the morning meeting at a clinic in Barcelona, Spain, March 31, 2020. Many elderly residents of Barcelona's Poble Sec neighborhood rely on the clinic for their health care, and even more so during the coronavirus pandemic.
AP Photo / Emilio Morenatti
A home care doctor performs a physical exam on Felicidad while her son, Joan, holds her arm at home in Barcelona, Spain, March 31, 2020. Felicidad had been admitted to the hospital after suffering a stroke but was sent home within a day and soon developed respiratory symptoms.
AP Photo / Emilio Morenatti
Paramedics tend to a patient who doesn't have COVID-19, inside an ambulance in Barcelona, Spain, April 6, 2020. Medical crews have been doing extra duty during the coronavirus pandemic, responding to patients who are positive and some who are not.
AP Photo / Emilio Morenatti
Home care nurse Alba Rodriguez puts on protective gear before visiting a patient in the Poble Sec neighborhood of Barcelona, Spain, March 30, 2020. A pediatric nurse by profession, Rodriguez has gotten creative to try to protect herself, fashioning hazmat suits out of giant yellow garbage bags that she and fellow nurses wear over their scrubs as extra protection. "We're like onions," she says of the extra layers.
AP Photo / Emilio Morenatti
Leopoldo Roman, 85, lies in bed wearing a face mask as he waits for doctors during a home medical visit in Barcelona, Spain, April 3, 2020. Roman, whose leg was amputated years ago, has to pay for daily care out of his pension since the public system only provides for a social worker to come for an hour a day, three days a week.
AP Photo / Emilio Morenatti
Maria Perez Gomez, 70, reacts as medical workers arrive at her home in Barcelona, Spain, April 1, 2020. She reluctantly called them after suffering breathing problems, a cough and a fever. “Please leave me here at home, don't take me to the hospital,” she begged the doctor. “Tell me, doctor, that I don't have the virus.”
AP Photo / Emilio Morenatti
Religious elements decorate a bedroom at Joan Olmedillo’s home in Barcelona, Spain, April 2, 2020. Olmedillo received a house call from visiting nurse Laura Valdes during the coronavirus pandemic.
AP Photo / Emilio Morenatti
Pepita Jove Puiggros, 92, holds the hand of home care nurse Laura Valdes during a visit in Barcelona, Spain, April 2, 2020. Puiggros lives alone and receives food deliveries from a social service agency three days a week, but the deliveries have become more unpredictable amid the coronavirus pandemic.
AP Photo / Emilio Morenatti
Vicente Lopez, 65, sits at his house waiting to be examined by a doctor during a home care visit in Barcelona, Spain, March 31, 2020. Lopez is under quarantine because his partner tested positive for COVID-19 and is in the hospital. Lopez relies on a neighbor to deliver groceries and basic supplies.
AP Photo / Emilio Morenatti
Medical workers responding to a home emergency walk away from a man, moments after they confirmed he died of severe respiratory problems in Barcelona, Spain, April 6, 2020.
AP Photo / Emilio Morenatti
Home care nurse Laura Valdes, 55, leaves an apartment after tending to patient Emilio Casas, 86, during a home care visit in Barcelona, Spain, April 2, 2020. Casas, who cannot stand up alone, receives a visit from nurses once a week and pays out of pocket for the assistance.
AP Photo / Emilio Morenatti
Nurse Laura Valdes tends to Josefa Ribas, 86, who is bedridden and suffers from dementia, during a home care visit in Barcelona, Spain, April 7, 2020. Ribas’ husband, Jose Marcos, fears what will happen if the virus enters their home and infects them. “I survived the post-war period (of mass hunger). I hope I survive this pandemic,” he said.
AP Photo / Emilio Morenatti
Each day for the two weeks, Morenatti and the health care workers visited five to seven patients in their homes scattered throughout the working-class Poble Sec neighborhood, many of them residing on top floors without elevators: “The long walks, the endless stairs and putting on and taking off protective gear on each of the visits was a challenge.”
Most of the patients were in their 80s. “On each visit I explained why I was taking photos: documenting the reason why citizens of every city in Spain come out to their balconies every day to applaud these public health workers,” he says.
Along with the health care professionals, Morenatti captured a frail and vulnerable generation, not only in the patients’ masked faces, but in their artwork, religious icons, trinkets and family photographs – the artifacts of a lifetime. The unique images, unmistakably European, are at once beautifully realized and heartbreaking. Chief Rome correspondent Nicole Winfield helped Morenatti with a perfect story to complement the intimate photos.
"My experience has been very rewarding, not only for knowing first-hand the reality inside each of those houses, but for the love and tremendous dedication of each one of those professionals," Morenatti said. https://bit.ly/2V9nvKS