Masquerade Ball

At the beginning of March 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic arrives in Italian-speaking Switzerland and also affects its old people’s homes: the number of infections among care staff and residents will be particularly high, as will be the number of deaths.

Immediately closed to all visitors, the homes for the elderly suspend all community activity and the caregivers will be called upon to redefine their professional identity, which has always been centered on chronicity, and transform themselves into acute care staff.
They will have to learn to navigate complex protocols, laborious procedures and measures to protect the guests and themselves.
For weeks on end, the feelings of anxiety, bewilderment and helplessness are amplified by no less dramatic echoes from outside, from a world in lockdown.
Yet, after the first weeks of daze, work is organized to adapt to the new reality, with the patient and not the disease at the center of attention.
As a geriatrician, taking over from two sick colleagues in one of these facilities, I had the unique opportunity to follow their progress over two months.