Spanish doctors hope beach trips can help ICU COVID-19 patients

After nearly two months of being sedated and connected to IV lines in a hospital's intensive care unit, Francisco Espana took a moment to fill his ailing lungs with fresh air at a Barcelona beachfront.

Lying on a hospital bed at the beach promenade and surrounded by his medical team who constantly monitored his vital signs, Espana briefly closed his eyes and absorbed as much sunshine as possible.

A medical team at the Hospital del Mar - the Hospital of the Seas - is seeing if short trips to the beach just across the street can help COVID-19 patients after long and sometimes traumatic ICU stays.

Dr. Judith Marin says it is part of a program to "humanize" ICUs that the group had been experimenting with for two years before the coronavirus hit Spain.

The strict isolation protocols that have had to be adopted since mid-March undid months of efforts to integrate ICU patients with professionals in the rest of the hospital, the doctor said.

Since restarting the program in early June, doctors said that even 10 minutes at the beach seems to improve a patient's well-being.

The team wants to take this anecdotal evidence further, and see whether such outdoor trips can help in the mid- and long-term recovery of COVID-19 patients.

For Espana, who works in a local market and has a passion for music, his memories of 52 days in intensive care are "cloudy." "They say I've overcome something really big. I am starting to realize that I should be very happy," the man known to his friends as "Paco" said as joggers and passers-by were attracted by the sight of a hospital bed under the boulevard's palm trees beside the Mediterranean.

Francisco spent 52 days in the Intensive Care unit at the hospital due to coronavirus, but today he was allowed by his doctors to spend almost ten minutes at the seaside as part of his recovery therapy.

For the 60-year-old Espana, the trip to the beach was a good sign. "Let's see if they now let me get a beer at the hospital cafeteria," he joked before returning to the ICU.