The life of Berta Domínguez (Badajoz, 1993) stopped and started again in 2017. At 23 years old and being a medical student, a fatal accident left her in a wheelchair. Her new physical condition closed the doors for her to be able to fulfill her dream: to become a surgeon. He changed his specialty option – family medicine – and began the titanic effort to prepare for the MIR (with a body almost immobile) and combine it with hard rehabilitation sessions. She succeeded, but with the signed contract and a day before starting work, she was told that she was “not suitable” for the position. Now he is fighting to be able to work in a medical specialty, even if it is not the desired one, and he regrets the systematic violation of the rights of people with disabilities.
Berta still remembers when, at the age of 16, her father, a surgeon, allowed her to undergo an operation. He came out of it “loving” the surgery. And this was his goal when he entered Medicine, a career he studied at the University of Salamanca. But when he was close to fulfilling his dream, everything changed. During a party, he threw himself headfirst into a pool with such bad luck that his hands slipped and his head hit the floor. He broke the C5 vertebra and fractured the C6, which caused him quadriplegia which, after a lot of rehabilitation, is now tetraparesis (affecting all limbs, but some mobility).
With an 89% disability and a salary of 900 euros, this young woman needs help for everything, even though she can now do her hair all by herself. Losing her independence was one of the things that was most difficult for her to accept: “I went from living alone with a cat to being admitted to a hospital” (the one for paraplegics in Toledo), explains this young woman. I ran out of (skilled) hands and had to abandon the idea of ??being a surgeon”. After giving up on his second option, psychiatry, due to lack of grades, he opted for family medicine. He combined studies with rehabilitation. But I could no longer take notes manually, for example. “I studied with my legs up and pillows, because the stress made them cross me”, he remembers. “It was a constant frustration… My pencil would fall and I had to notify my boyfriend.” This adaptation to his new circumstances was not at all easy. “It’s a bombardment for the head”. Luckily, he loaded the neulers with the help of his sister Paulina, who was also preparing the MIR. And he vindicates his effort: “Let everyone study the MIR with quadriplegia, let’s see who gets it!”.
He passed it in January with the 8,171st place, but he was left without a place after he was awarded a place in family medicine. With the contract signed with the 12 de Octubre hospital in Madrid, he explains that he received an email saying “not suitable”. When he asked for an explanation, he was told that he cannot scan patients. “They haven’t valued what I can do”, he says.
It makes her angry that no one had warned her in time of the limitation that her disability entailed and that the decision was not based on any evidence. But despite the helplessness, he has decided to keep fighting. They advised him to ask for a change of specialty and he has finally chosen to accept preventive medicine and public health at King Juan Carlos.
And even so, his employment future is still not tied, with the consequent uncertainty. “It’s been a month since I should have been working and I’m still waiting without being able to plan anything because I don’t know what will happen to me in a week,” he regrets.
The last few weeks have been terrible. Lack of appetite, weight loss… Sleeping is not easy at all. “I’m very tired and very angry and this causes me spasms”, she explains. Because it does not fail to confirm the violation of the rights of people with disabilities in Spain. He has asked for an appointment in person with the Ministry of Health so that they “know my physical capabilities”, but he says that they tell him that they do not grant them in person. “I don’t know if they are demigods to make decisions without seeing people”.
“They saw me like this and decided to give me the unfit, thinking that I would keep quiet, but I won’t do that if they take away what is mine”, he warns. He asks for the law to be changed and to regulate access to the profession for people with disabilities and asks ironically “if there are people with disabilities in Spain”.
“I don’t want special treatment. I earned it myself. I’ve hung out a lot”, claims this young woman from Extremadura. Many have supported her, but she knows that it is a battle she has to fight for her and also for all those who follow her.
