Spanish medics suffer mental trauma months after COVID-19's first wave

A hospital staff member Ricardo Belmonte, 50, cries as he talk about yours feelings and thoughts in an interview with Reuters, after having worked with patients suffering from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of a Hospital, in Barcelona, Spain February 2, 2021. REUTERS/Nacho Doce

BARCELONA (Reuters) - It has been eight months since he last treated a patient with COVID-19, but Spanish nurse Ricardo Belmonte still feels anxious when he recalls the first wave of the pandemic at the intensive care unit of Barcelona's Vall d'Hebron Hospital.

Early last year patients were pleading with him to save their lives and he had to live apart from his family for three months to protect them from infection.