Vera Juarez
Dr Vera Juarez was a surgeon at City General Hospital and an associate of the Torchwood team.
During the Miracle, Vera was key to changing how hospitals in the United States operated, but was disgusted at how her idea to treat minor injuries before major ones was interpreted as abandoning those in severe need of help. She joined Torchwood in their mission to end the Miracle because of her feelings of responsibility for the overflow camps and was ultimately burnt to death by Colin Maloney when she threatened to have him prosecuted.
Biography
Early life
Vera Juarez came from San Antonio (TV: Immortal Sins) and had a brother. (TV: End of the Road) She claimed that she was once Catholic before she "got better" and studied medicine at Columbia where she had a college mentor who made her want to give back to the world like she did. (TV: Dead of Night)
Vera got a job as a surgeon at City General Hospital in Washington DC and had a friend at Royal Free Hospital. She had a failed marriage with a man who worked at Cedarbrook (TV: The New World) and who called her asking for drugs and sex after their divorce. (TV: Rendition) In 2010, Vera had to make the difficult decision to let her mother die after she suffered a massive stroke and made a commencement speech about her college mentor. (TV: Dead of Night)
The Miracle
On 19 March 2011, Vera learnt that there had been no deaths at City General, St Jude's, Cedarbrook or the Royal Free Hospital and was able to treat Rex Matheson's otherwise fatal injury as a result of the Miracle, which she told Esther Drummond about when she visited him. She protested against Victor Louis Santini removing the head of a suicide bomber at a session where she briefly met Jack Harkness and later failed to prevent Rex from leaving the hospital on account of the severity of his injuries. (TV: The New World)
Vera realised that the hospital's usual procedure had to be reversed to free up beds and joined a medical panel to discuss the response to the Miracle after hearing that the Dean of Medicine had gone to one despite having no knowledge of how what was happening. She deduced that the mass production of painkillers would have to begin immediately and attracted the attention of Jilly Kitzinger, who gave her a sample of PhiCorp painkillers and advised her to petition for access to surplus drugs reserved for the civil defence programme. After getting the help of her panel to assist Rex and Gwen Cooper in creating EDTA to save Jack's life aboard an aeroplane over the Atlantic Ocean, she took the painkillers to Rex at the airport. (TV: Rendition)
Vera found Rex inside her home after returning from a panel meeting and the pair had sex after she redressed his wound, trusting that he was not a traitor as the CIA claimed he was, but she kicked him out when he attempted to get her to spy on PhiCorp by playing on the fact that their apparent knowledge of the Miracle could have kept her from letting her mother die. Despite this, she changed her mind and let Gwen into PhiCorp's headquarters whilst attending a presentation Jilly invited her to. (TV: Dead of Night)
Rex called Vera to ask about Ellis Hartley Monroe's "Dead is Dead" campaign and how he could acquire prescription drugs in Los Angeles with no questions asked, a request which she was unable to help with. She disagreed with Bisme Katusi's suggestion that emergency patients be moved to an abandoned hospital and, once it was implemented, she found the state of the facility and its makeshift wards disgraceful and tried to get Katusi to tell her what the long-term plan was. She was also disgusted by Oswald Danes competing for popularity against Hartley Monroe using an abandoned baby. (TV: Escape to LA)
With the closing of the medical panels and the introduction of the categories of life, Vera flew to Los Angeles to join Torchwood in their mission to end the Miracle. She suggested that the modules at the overflow camps could be being used to cultivate diseases and gained access to the San Pedro Overflow Camp as an observer to investigate after pulling strings in Washington. Rex and Jack attempted to stop her, but she felt some responsibility for the camps on account of her being a part of the panels which resulted in them being set up. (TV: The Categories of Life)
Death
Vera was shown around the camp by Colin Maloney and disagreed with how her suggestions at the panels had been interpreted to recategorise patients in decline to divert attention to those who could recover. She was disgusted to find that patients without insurance were being stored away and that one had been mislabelled as a Category 1, leading her to threaten Maloney with prosecution for causing harm to those in his care. After insulting him, he shot her in the leg and took her to the module where she was burnt to death as Rex recorded her final moments to expose the practice. (TV: The Categories of Life)
Legacy
Rex swore that he would burn whoever killed Vera, but Maloney was instead made Category 1 by Esther and Ralph Coltrane. Torchwood released the footage of her death and an investigation began. (TV: The Middle Men)
The video of Vera's death received over five million views and people set up memorial services for her. (TV: Immortal Sins)
Vera was survived by her brother, who received a phone call from Rex expressing his condolences. (TV: End of the Road)
Appearance
Colin Maloney told Vera that she was beautiful and "thin as a twig". (TV: The Categories of Life)
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