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“I cry alone,” says Mom who can’t hug or kiss her quarantined boy to comfort him.

By on March 19, 2020

Federica Pezzetti, 37-year old medical director at the Cremona Hospital is at the frontlines in locked down Italy treating coronavirus cases. Italy is now on its 4th week of the CoVid crisis that has reached 35,713 as of today. It is sad.

Even sadder is the fact that Pezzetti’s 7-year old boy is under quarantine.  She says in a media interview, “One of the things that’s becoming more difficult to manage for us, mothers in healthcare, is not being able to embrace our children. Many of us are starting to lose it, now we need a psychologist.”

She is frustrated and sad and who wouldn’t be?  This is a special time when her own child needs comforting the most. “ I try to explain the truth to my boy who I haven’t seen for more than two weeks,” she says in a sad tone.

Whether you come in contact with the virus or not, everything has changed since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. And for Pezzetti, that includes how things are done at home.

“When I come back home from work, I eat alone, always keeping a distance from my husband. We sleep separately. I pay a lot of attention to all what’s happening.”

“When I’m done past three in the morning, I go back to sleep, and return to the hospital at eight. I kiss my son in thoughts.”

She says some coronavirus patients have moved their family to their in-laws in order to avoid the risk of contamination. “I know a neurosurgeon who has not seen her children for three weeks. Everything  here has changed,”  she tells La Reppublica.

This pandemic puts doctors, nurses, paramedics, epidemiologists, governments, schools and families to a big survival test. We are living a new reality when everyone looks beyond their own comfort zones to look after the needs of their nearest and dearest. But the challenge for the Italian mom is even greater.

“Of course there is a fear of contagion. But there is also our families to care for, those close to us. When you are very tired and you see ambulances arriving continuously and you know that hospital beds are limited, you start to give up because you don’t see the end.” 

“We cry alone,” she adds, “secretly, when we are a little on the edge. There is adrenaline, anger, tears.”

Being in the frontlines of a country in total lockdown, Pezzetti admits, tensions at work add to her worries. “Sometimes we argue over trifles, gloves that have not arrived or the masks that are not found, a few things but enough to cause nervous ticks.”

Much of the excessive irritability and tension at work she describes is no doubt, caused by overwork. The mother says her shifts often stretch to 13-14 hours a day, with some doctors working non-stop for even 34 hours.

“This is why the help of the psychologist and the jokes of patients become important in a critical situation such as this.”

“The entire hospital staff, and I speak for Cremona, has brought about a solidarity never seen before. Everyone does everything. We all help each other out. Hierarchy roles no longer exist here.”

When asked what the first thing she will do when all this is over, she answers with a smile, “I will embrace my son and husband for a whole day. One day! And then I will sit on the sofa, free and relaxed, like it used to be when things were normal.”

About Stefania Wasllewsky