Nurse who caught coronavirus while working to save lives is evicted by her landlord

A nurse has been kicked out of her rented flat by a heartless landlord after she caught coronavirus while saving lives.

Clara Serrano, 31, says she was told to leave the flat in Madrid, Spain, on the same day she tested positive for Covid-19.

Serrano, who works in a hospital in the Spanish capital of Madrid, moved from the town of Quintanar del Rey in Cuenca to help on the frontline of the coronavirus outbreak.

Speaking to local media Eldiario, she said: 

I arrived in Madrid on 11th of March to start working at the hospital on the 12th. I was sent to a COVID-19 ward. On the 19th I started to notice symptoms. On the 22nd I was tested and on the 23rd I was told I was positive.

The intensive care nurse said she noticed "a tightness in my chest" but put her symptoms down to anxiety as the hospital was "overflowing" with more critical patients needing care.

Serrano said she awoke without smell or taste the day after she noticed initial symptoms,

And I remember that my eyes hurt a lot that morning. But then it disappeared, she recalled.

The 31-year-old nurse took a test which confirmed she had the deadly bug.

She said:

Deep down, I knew it. When I called Occupational Health to say that I had gotten up without taste and without smell, they told me that 60 per cent of patients present that symptom.

There was a lot of talk about fever, cough, and breathing difficulties, and I haven't had any of the three.

Serrano added: 

That same day the landlord told me that I had to go away.

She immediately isolated herself in her bedroom, only going out to use the kitchen, using a separate toilet and telling her three other flatmates she was going to be extremely careful.

However, the landlord reportedly insisted she had to leave the flat and her flatmates feared they would also catch the disease.

Serrano said: 

I was very scared. I tried to explain to him that I would leave but it might not be immediately but he did not listen to me.

He did not stop putting pressure on me on the phone and he did not stop telling me that I had to leave immediately.

I understand the dread, the fear in crisis situations, but things could have been done differently. The man maybe thought he was risky because of his age but we could have talked about it.

The young woman has since asked the state nursing union for help to find her accommodation and is currently staying in a room at the Hotel Colon in Madrid.