Professional rugby player swaps the field for a Spanish emergency ward a month after graduating from medical school, offering his services for free

A professional rugby player from Argentina has swapped the field for a hospital emergency ward in Spain, offering his services for free a month after graduating.

VRAC Quesos Entrepinares’ striker, Sacha Casañas, 26, finished his medicine studies in March and this week joined a hospital in Valladolid to help in the fight against coronavirus.

With decisive rugby matches off the table at the moment, Casañas signed up with the Spanish Health Service “without expecting anything in return.”

The services of the forward for VRAC Quesos Entrepinares, current league champions, were quickly snapped up by the Emergency Department of the Hospital Clínico Universitario de Valladolid, where he started as a volunteer a few days ago.

“My gateway to Spain is my work as a rugby player, my pay check is as a sportsman,” he told El Mundo, adding: “I don’t want to be paid for this, I know the situation is complicated.”

While he may have a leading position within his winning rugby team, he said his role in the hospital is based solely on support: “I had practically no experience, but I wanted to help out, to get a bit of work done knowing what my limitations were.”

Casañas said he tends to patients who, he observed, “wait too long to come and whose symptoms may correspond with Covid-19, so we cannot let down our guard.”

Casañas finished his degree in medicine a month ago, during a trip to Argentina where he did his last exam, however his degree has been withheld “for lack of a signature” due to movement restrictions.

The Argentinian player, who soon stood out among the youth squad of Buenos Aires, said he developed an interest in his professional vocation through playing rugby.

“I got into medicine because of the trauma I suffered,” he said, explaining he ruptured ligaments in his knee and spent two months in confinement due to swine flu.

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