For this Milan nurse, COVID-19 patients enter the soul

The coronavirus brings with it forced isolation: Family members can't visit hospitalised patients. Nursing homes bar their doors to outsiders. People with mild cases or who have been in contact with infected persons must stay in quarantine. But frontline heatlcare workers like Italian nurse Cristina Settembrese (centre), brave all as they spend days caring for COVID-19 patients putting themselves at risk and their lives on hold.

Nurse Cristina Settembrese spends her days caring for COVID-19 patients in a hospital ward, and when she goes home, her personal isolation begins by her own choice.

The 54-year-old Cristina Settembrese has been a nurse since she was 18. Two months ago, the infectious disease ward where she works at San Paolo Hospital in Milan started treating only COVID-19 patients. Suddenly, she had to learn how to operate machines she likens to "helmets" to help patients breathe. She studied the operating instructions at home in a kind of self-taught cram course.

Two days after Italy's first confirmed case in late February, Settembrese sent her 24-year-old daughter, Rebecca, from their home in the Milan suburb of Basiglio to live with her sister. The nurse was worried she might inadvertently infect her daughter. | Above: Settembrese leaves after finishing her work shift in the COVID-19 ward San Paolo hospital in Milan.

Settembrese chats with daughter Rebecca, who leans over a first-floor balcony, whenever she can pass by.

A single parent, her only companion now in her apartment is her Chihuahua, Pepe, who gets bundled in a faux leopard-skin coat for a walk. | Above: Settembrese walks her dog Pepe before going to the hospital.

On her way to the hospital eight kilometers away, Settembrese stops at her parents' bakery. From the sidewalk, Settembrese waves to her mother with a rubber-gloved hand. | Above: Settembrese makes a video call to say goodnight to her parents near her home in Basiglio.

Walking Pepe and chatting with fellow dog owners at a safe distance "is my only social life," Settembrese says. | Above: Settembrese shows a pack of food to her pet chihuahua dog Pepe.

But Settembrese speaks of her new family — her patients and colleagues — with whom she has forged bonds in these past fraught weeks. | Above: Settembrese, centre, shares food and Easter eggs with colleagues at the San Paolo hospital.

The patients "live their life alone. Sometimes they die alone," Settembrese says. | Above: Settembrese speaks to a colleague through the window of a door during her shift.

Before she (centre) leaves work for the night, she reviews with her colleagues how the patients are faring. Not just how well they are breathing but whether they feel angry or distraught because relatives have died from COVID-19.

Once off-duty, the nurses call each other to ask how their patients are doing. "We feel a little like we're their family," Settembrese says. "They are patients who enter into your soul."

Cristina Settembrese has her temperature checked by colleagues at the San Paolo Hospital in Milan, as she arrives for her work shift.

Cristina Settembrese receives food to be shared with colleagues from her mother Filomena as her father Palmiro looks on at left outside their bakery in Basiglio, Italy.

Cristina Settembrese leaves her apartment to take her dog Pepe for a walk before going to hospital.