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Vera Juarez was a surgeon at City General Hospital in the 21st century and, briefly, a member of Torchwood.
Biography
Miracle Day
She performed emergency surgery on Rex Matheson, correcting damage to his pericardium, major veins and arteries. She also alerted Esther Drummond to the medical miracle that was going on around the world. Through her contacts at various hospitals around the United States and Great Britain, she was able to determine that no one had died for over 24 hours — a statistical impossibility. (TW: 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 favor of getting patients with minor injuries out of the medical system. Hoping to spread this insight, Juarez attended a conference in Washington, D.C., where she realized 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 stabilized, 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. (TW: Rendition)
Later on, Rex (who had joined Torchwood) broke into Vera's house for help, as his wound was getting worse. She helped him, and Rex proceeded to have sex with her. He then offended her, causing her to throw him out of her house, but she then decided to help him infiltrate PhiCorp. (TW: Dead of Night)
She later witnessed Ellis Hartley Monroe and Oswald Danes battle it out for popularity, which disgusted Vera. (TW: Escape to LA)
Death
After the new categories of life were released, and the medical panels were disbanded, Vera decided to join Torchwood — currently 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. It was then discovered that the modules were actually ovens and the Category 1 patients were being burnt alive. Maloney switched "on" the module, causing all the patients, including Vera, to be burned alive. (TW: The Categories of Life)
Vera's death was later exposed by Rex and Esther following their escape from the camp, and 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. (TW: The Middle Men)