Vera Juarez
Dr Vera Juarez was a surgeon at City General Hospital in the 21st century and an associate of the Torchwood team. She was also Rex Matheson's lover and his personal doctor/spy for info gathering.
Biography
Early life
Vera Juarez came from San Antonio (TV: Immortal Sins) and had a brother. (TV: End of the Road) She became a doctor at City General Hospital in Washington DC and 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)
Vera was friends with a woman who worked at the Royal Free Hospital in London. (TV: The New World) In 2010, Vera had to make the difficult decision to let her mother die after she suffered a massive stroke. (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)
The following day, Juarez was overseeing her ER when she had a revelation: the nature of the miracle meant that the entire triage system was now backwards, due to patients being unable to die. Long-term care was now the priority; patients in "critical" condition would have to be temporarily ignored in favour of getting patients with minor injuries out of the medical system. Hoping to spread this insight, Juarez attended a conference in Washington DC, where she realised that infections would become disastrous due to being able to indefinitely grow inside never-dying hosts. While there, she received a call from Rex, who explained that the only mortal man on Earth had been poisoned with arsenic, and talked Rex and Gwen Cooper through treatment. Once the man, Jack Harkness, had been stabilised, Rex asked Juarez to meet him at the airport when he returned. On her way out, Juarez was accosted by Jilly Kitzinger, who mentioned that Juarez would need to work to repeal legislature restricting antibiotic access and offered Juarez her card. At the airport, Juarez only briefly met Rex, who was being pursued by the CIA, before being left behind. (TV: Rendition)
Later on, Rex, who had joined Torchwood, broke into Vera's house for help, as his wound was getting worse. Rex noted that their relationship was mutual blackmail, which was he found arousing. Despite the fact she was exhausted, Vera gave in and they had sex; it ended up helping Vera clear her head from all the stress Miracle Day gave her. He then offended her, causing her to throw him out of her house, but later decided to help him infiltrate PhiCorp. (TV: Dead of Night)
She later witnessed Ellis Hartley Monroe and Oswald Danes battle it out for popularity, which disgusted her. (TV: Escape to LA)
Death
After the new categories of life were released and the medical panels were disbanded, Vera decided to join Torchwood — a rag-tag band made up of ex-Torchwood Three and ex-CIA members — to stop the Miracle. Vera went under cover inspecting an overflow camp, despite Rex's concerns, but was shot at the leg and the shoulder and put into a module with Category 1 individuals by Colin Maloney after threatening to prosecute him for not looking after the patients in the overflow camp correctly. The modules were actually ovens and the Category 1 patients were being burnt alive. Maloney switched on the module, burning alive all the patients, including Vera. (TV: The Categories of Life)
Legacy
Vera's death was later exposed by Rex and Esther following their escape from the camp. While this prompted the White House to launch an official investigation into the San Pedro camp, the policy for handling category ones was left unchanged. (TV: The Middle Men)
Vera was survived by her brother, who received a phone call from Rex Matheson, expressing his condolences. (TV: End of the Road)
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