Isha Sesay
IT was perhaps not the record he would have wanted to break, but the victory was nonetheless a great one.
Manuel, 64, won his battle against coronavirus this week, 159 days after being admitted into intensive care at Son Espases hospital.
The Mallorcan had been hospitalised with COVID-19 for the longest time in the entire country after falling seriously unwell on March 25.
After fighting for his life hooked up to a ventilator, Manuel received a worthy round of applause from the doctors and nurses who cared for him as he was wheeled out of the ICU.
Manuel is now on the road to recovery and has taken the record from a patient named only as Vicente. The doctor was admitted to Reina Sofia Hospital in Cordoba on March 18.
After 155 days in intensive care, he was finally discharged from the ICU unit.
The primary care physician, from a health centre in the Andalucian city, tested negative for COVID-19 two months ago, but he remained so ill from its effects that he remained in intensive care.
Vicente’s recovery followed that of another patient recently discharged from the ICU at the Gregorio Marañon Hospital in Madrid.
He had had spent 144 days in intensive care and is now the patient with the ‘honour’ of spending the third longest time in intensive care in Spain after the Cordoban doctor and Manuel.
