Jorge Aguero was a churrero, he died of Covid after waiting three days for a bed and his wife was left with six children and without a job: “I need to feed them”

“I can’t lie on the bed crying over the death of my husband, because I have six children, including four-month-old twins”, says, without consolation Mariel Claudia Lima (46). Last April 21 her husband, Jorge Aguero (60), Churros street vendor, entered by the Cosme Argerich Hospital guard with advanced symptoms of COVID-19. “I had a lot of chest pain, shortness of breath and it wasn’t saturating well. I took it a bit forced because I was scared, ”says Claudia.

There were no beds available in intensive care due to the increase in cases in CABA. That is why they placed him in a box chair with an oxygen mask. “They did the swab, two hours later they came back with a positive result, and with that they did a chest X-ray. The picture was serious: bilateral pneumonia”.

Hours passed and Jorge was still sitting, in pain, and suffering from not being able to breathe. “He asked me to bring him a coat from home and a pillow to try to rest.” Meanwhile, Claudia was demanding a bed.

According to the report of the city government, on that date recorded an occupancy of 83.2% of ICU beds. The report provided by the Buenos Aires Ministry of Health added that, in moderate cases, the occupancy was 46.2% (693 out of 1,500 available) and in light ones, 10.6% (531 out of 5,000).

“When seeing the overflow of the hospitals in Capital Federal We were terrified to go to the guard, until at one point we had to take Jorge because he was out of breath and it really felt really bad, ”he recalls. There they treated him quickly

Finally, After 72 hours of waiting, Jorge could be rushed to the intensive care sector of the hospital. “He entered the ICU, immediately they sedated him and intubated him to connect him to the ventilator. His condition was critical. A week later he died of cardiorespiratory failure”.

Jorge has already been cremated, and his family is still waiting for his ashes to be able to see him off. “We spoke for the last time by audio message where I heard him wrong. I didn’t get to see him, or say goodbye”.

The second wave of the coronavirus hit the whole family, but Claudia – far from being angry-, appreciates the attention of the medical staff. “They did everything in their power, they are overwhelmed, the problem is the system. I don’t know if the scenario would be different if it had been attended the first day … I don’t know ”.

And he continues: “I don’t know who was to blame, but (Jorge) didn’t get the attention he required at the time. I didn’t have the therapy bed I needed or the respirator I needed ”his wife lamented. “I am aware that I am not the only family that is going through this. In the hospital there were other patients suffering like him ”.

Jorge went out to work every day on his bicycle, selling churros filled with dulce de leche that he prepared himself.

“He had no choice but to go out to work to pay for the house. He was careful with the chinstrap and the alcohol gel ”. None of the six members was infected. They still don’t know how the virus got through. “One of my daughters, the 16-year-old is diabetic, luckily she didn’t get sick.”

“No matter how much I scream, cry or claim, no one is going to give it back to me. My children today don’t have a father, and I don’t have a job. I have to go on and go out anyway, for them”, she adds.

Claudia lives with her six children in a room in a tenement that she rents in La Boca. Since before the pandemic, she has been unemployed and now subsists on donations. “They approached the City government to offer containment. But I need to work”.

He draws strength from within and makes his request: “All I want is to work to raise my children, I can clean, cook … make churros. Now I am going to sell from home because my bicycle is broken. What I do need urgently is milk and diapers for the twins.

To help Claudia call 1131986139. Address: Enrique Parker 77, CABA