TABLE 3.

Verbatim interviews transcripts ‐ professionals (VP) and family members (VF)

	Verbatim transcripts
VF1	“They put him on oxygen and then suddenly everything was like chaos. I remember they would yell code, code, they were taking him to be resuscitated. They laid him down, they grabbed him, with like a spoon, from the wheelchair, the thing is I didn't get to see his face again because he turned around from me, neither a goodbye nor anything. I stayed…like this. And me, code would reverberate in my head and I would think darn, resuscitation is for people who are dying, or who are having a stroke, who need to be resuscitated, what do I know.” (IF04 Daughter of Deceased)
VF2	“And well, me, the goodbye… that is, I didn't see him physically since the day I called the doctor. I never saw him again.” (IF03 Daughter of Deceased)
VP1	“And there are [relatives] that came in February or the first weekend in March and they haven't seen their relatives again, they haven't been able to see, nor have they been able to go to the hospital, nor could they come in here, nothing at all.” (IP13 Psychologist in a Senior Residence)
VP2	“Unfortunately, we have seen that there have been a lot of cases of people who presented with mild symptoms for a few days, even without having a fever, and who suddenly in a period of two, three hours, all of a sudden would begin to have a very, very, very high fever. They would start saturating, they would start with respiratory problems and they would die in two, three hours.” (IP14 Communication Director for Chain of Senior Residences)
VP3	“To be talking with them and they drop dead, and that patient five minutes earlier had been on the phone with their family, and then telling their family member that the patient was dead, and they would tell me: ‘Doctor, that is impossible.’ And me: ‘Well no… the patient is dead’ and they would tell me: ‘That is impossible.’ And the truth is, ugh…” (IP07 Doctor)
VP4	“You would call a relative and you would say…: ‘Look I am so sorry, your dad has passed away,’ and the daughter would say to me: ‘but what hospital are you calling me from?’; ‘from Santa Cristina’ and she would tell you: ‘That can't be, my father was admitted to the Príncipe de Asturias, in the ER, he walked in there on his own to be admitted, with a little shortness of breath, a low grade fever and ‘well my daughter I will see you later, bye‐bye.’ What that daughter doesn't know is that in the fervor of the battle that father in the ER had worsened, and in a rush, they had brought him to our hospital, in our hospital he had been admitted, he kept worsening, he had been intubated, and finally he had died. And no one in that process had had time to call the daughter.” (IP04 Nurse)
VP5	It's not the same to be told: ‘hey’; Than when you know you have a relative who is sick with an illness, you see how they deteriorate, you are by their side and keep them company, you talk to the doctors and see it coming, you can prepare… to suddenly, like in this case, leave a person with a mild cough and a low grade fever…. And this person is gone in two days and you can't see that person, you can't talk to a doctor, you can't get a hold of anyone.” (IP30 Funeral Home Communications Manager)
VP6	“Another one asked me for the earrings, and I mailed them because they needed to know that it was their mother and the only way to know was the earrings.” (IP14 Communication Director for Chain of Senior Residences)
VP7	“And in that regard that it was the condolence message to the family, it caught my attention how they couldn't believe that their relative had passed, that they would ask more questions: ‘Libertad, I need to know if he died with his mouth open,’ and I would say: ‘Well, if you need it, I will go the doctor and ask him,’ or 'Who was there in that moment, who closed his eyes?' Very specific questions about death that shocked me, and I say, ‘Good heavens, the mouth open…'" (IP15 Social Worker in Chain of Senior Residences)
VF3	“I needed, let's see. I hadn't been able to talk to my father and say to him ‘How are you feeling? What do you feel, are you scared? Or, do you feel bad? Do you feel well?’ Thus, I had the need to read everything. I even read how he had died and well that he had an IV in his femoral, then in the jugular or there were things, well, very hard that you don't want anyone to go through, much less your own father. Thus, well I think I have a pretty big trauma that I will need to treat, no doubt, because when I start thinking about it, I start to have a panic attack and no one should touch me, no one should stress me." (IF04 Daughter of Deceased)
VF4	“Another really hard thing was to not be able to speak with him. A friend of my boyfriend, his dad was hospitalised, and he is young, and of course he had his mobile phone, but my grandfather didn't know how to use his mobile, actually he didn't even take it with him, and also, he was going to the hospital and I didn't think like ‘take your mobile, take it to keep us informed'.” (IF05 Granddaughter of Deceased)
VP8	“The thing is she called us almost daily, it was these daughters who called their father every morning and afternoon, and when he passed, they continued calling: ‘Well it's as if he hasn't died, Higinia, and we are simply calling to know how you are doing because it seems as if you gave us a bit of strength and such…'” (IP10 Director in Senior Residence)
VF5	“And then I started having conversations with his roommate. He would tell me he was doing terribly, that he had two kids, that he was scared of dying. And there I was cheering him up and I said to him ‘well, you will both go on, ‐ I say‐ you'll see, do you mind if I call you more often?’ And he said: ‘no, no, as often as you'd like’….” (IF03 Daughter of Deceased)
VF6	“And in fact, I think of his voice a lot, if there is a day that it's blurrier, I call him, because I didn't want to cancel…. See? These are things that I’m the only one who refuses, and I call him to hear his voicemail.” (IF04 Daughter of deceased).
VP9	“They couldn't see him in those twenty days, nor later when we were taking him away, nor later when he was buried, nor when he was incinerated…” (IP25 Hearse Driver)
VP10	“It's just not possible, you don't see a certain something that you can start to come to terms with, you haven't even seen your loved one deceased, thus he is, and he isn't, and they return....” (IP02 Hospital Psychologist)
VF7	“They took him away, they put him in, well, I didn't go, but my father went, and he said he couldn't see the box or anything else, that is he immediately signed to pay later and well the estimate, and then, nothing else.” (IF05 Granddaughter of Deceased)
VP11	“And we have seen how people would jump on the coffins, even trying to open them, because they didn't trust that the body was in there, that is very important.” (IP09 Hospital and Mortuary Chaplain).
VF8	“And all this without us knowing where, and because he [my brother] went and said ‘Hey, it is my mother, and I want to know where the body is, because my mother passed and we don't know anything, we haven't been able to cry for her, nothing.'” (IF02 Daughter of Deceased)
VP12	“Some families did ask (that you open the coffin), although they knew the answer was no. ‘Is there no way to see him? Of course, because, well, ‘my father has been hospitalised for a month, he passed and simply, so we know that it is my dad, I am not asking for anything, just for you to open it.’ But the answer was always negative. It was impossible. Due to protocol, of course, more than anything else.” (IP33 Public Relations Representative at Funeral Home)
VP13	“Because with no rite there is no mourning. Let's see, if there is no rite the mourning doesn't begin. The mourning begins when you go back home without your loved one, that is the beginning of mourning no matter how you look at it, no matter what anyone says.” (IP09 Hospital and Mortuary Chaplain)
VP14	“Then there has been no proper mourning. That means this is the worst thing about this illness, there isn't mourning, you haven't seen that person, you haven't said goodbye.” (IP06 Social Worker in a Senior Residence)
VP15	“Here grief isn't comparable with normal grief, it has nothing in common, it is completely different, as in, I have seen…I have spent a lot of time in the street and in hospitals, 29 years, and in those 29 years easily 25 I have been in the street and therefore I am used to seeing reactions from relatives. From families who came with their grief in a very advanced phase, who are already in the phase, in cancer grief for instance, they arrive already in the complete acceptance phase, they have already cried as much as they needed to, the denying is behind them, the anger is behind them, and they are just in the acceptance part, accepting this is this way and such. I have also encountered those who become furious, as if I had, I was responsible, which is also quite common… you see all that, but in this case, it was really strange, because you didn't know how to face it.” (IP24 Sales Director at Funeral Home)
VF9	“But I think that this is a process, for me and the millions of families there are, which is going to be very traumatic to deal with, maybe me, my sister, my mother, I don't know. But I know I will need lots of work. Truth be told, not just a chat but also mental work or that they help me forget…about that, I don't want to forget either. (IF04 Daughter of Deceased).
VF10	“It is that I am like gutted that until we are able to bury him, to me it's not… but if it was up to him, he wouldn't have wanted to end this way (…).” (IF05 Granddaughter of Deceased)
VF11	“Yes, yes, yes, it put me at ease enough, it has put me at ease enough. I don't know how to explain it. As in, in a way… generally speaking I felt as if something was missing, right? Also, that something was owed to him in a way, in a way and well, and that day, well yes, it is true that considering all the measures and everything, seeing people does wonders, it does wonders. Seeing relatives too, well, it had been a while we hadn't seen, people close to us, people that well, who really loved him and who were there that day.” (IF01 Daughter of Deceased)
VF12	“Well look, I have to be extremely grateful that I have mourned through this, at that time of chaos in Madrid's life, all over Spain, I have to be grateful that I had time to grieve because I have been privileged that I could… (…) Well, my brother Fernando called the funeral home and they told him there was no problem, just that it would take a long time for them to take the body, that they might show up at 5 a.m. or something like that, that they couldn't come pick him up, which I was thankful for because I wanted to be with him. And then, fortunately, that's what they said. Then, well, we had enough time to be with him a little while, to pray for him.” (IF06 Wife of Deceased)
VP16	“I told the girls “give him a complete PPE' and told them to let him go in the room, I didn't care, let someone come tell me that I have violated the protocols. That is, morally here we did have an option A and option B.” (IP01 Hospital Director)
VP17	“When the patient was really sick, they were forbidding us as well from allowing their relatives to come see the deceased, and I refused (…) and then I refused, and I said that relatives had to see the deceased.” (IP07 Doctor)
VP18	“Everything we could do to make that grief at the end a little more bearable, we have tried to do, because it could happen to any of us, it could have happened to us, but it happened to them and in some cases very… excessively quick, and families here inconsolable laying on the floor crying, laying on the floor simply crying because their dad was hospitalised two days ago and… and he was now gone, two days, he died in 48 hr. I imagine that must be really hard. You cannot tell that family ‘say goodbye in 15 min and leave’….” (IP03 Hospital Patient Experience Department Representative)
VF13	“But of course, it was… You cannot get close. That is, my father was where you are and me, in fact, they had to sit me down, I couldn't touch him, I couldn't do anything I couldn't touch myself either. If you touched yourself, they would scream so that you would not… that is, they had to wash you, you had to be like a robot. Of course, it was so cold, because I would talk to my Dad, but I needed to feel him, I just didn't care." (IP05 Nurse)
VP19	“There were families that were completely dominated by fear and who didn't want to come near the hospital under any circumstances. Then, ‘So my father, my aunt, or my grandmother has passed? Well then, great. Tell me what to do or when to come pick up their belongings.'” (IP01 Hospital Director).
VP20	"But there have been some families that have declined the possibility of being there in the last moment so that a priest could be there instead." (IP14 Communication Director of Chain of Senior Residences)
VF14	“I got back in touch with the medical team, and I told them: ‘I won't come to say goodbye, I am a high risk person and I am scared.’ That was the end, that was the end. (,,,) I feel gutted about going to see him, because then I got sick, well, at that time I already had COVID, but I didn't know.” (IF03 Daughter of Deceased)