Claudio Andrade
10/22/2020 4:32 PM
Clarín.com
Society
Updated 10/22/2020 4:32 PM
The health services of three of the largest towns in Neuquén and Río Negro - which number around 650,000 inhabitants and are stuck together - reached
desperate levels of saturation
during these hours
.
The scenario forces doctors to decide, among the most serious cases,
who receives care
in the Intensive Care Units (ICU) and
who does not
.
At the Pedro Moguillansky hospital in Cipolletti (Río Negro) they recognize that they have been working in a
"warm bed"
for months, a doctor told Río Negro.
That is, one patient leaves (due to death or recovery) and another enters.
"The demand is constant and that causes
many patients to accumulate on duty,
" he added.
As the system is fully occupied, some new patients had to be
treated in chairs
while looking for more suitable beds or spaces in the building.
This Thursday, the dialogue led by a health agent from the Castro Rendón hospital in the Neuquén capital and the daughter of a patient in serious condition revealed the harsh panorama that they live in the Upper Valley of North Patagonia.
"We are giving her comfort, accompanying her so that she does not feel short of breath," says the agent.
"I've been seeing her since she entered, your mother has a history, she came in breathing badly and wearing the mask is not enough," he adds.
“If she gets tired, she is not a candidate for intubation (…)
if she goes into respiratory arrest, she will not be resuscitated
.
He's serious, he's going to get tired of breathing ”, he concludes.
According to official data, Neuquén capital (about 350 thousand inhabitants) reaches
99% occupancy
of ICU beds, while Cipolletti (about 150 thousand inhabitants) reaches
100%
in the same category.
This city is located just one bridge crossing from Neuquén and 39 kilometers from General Roca (about 150 thousand inhabitants), which has oscillated
between 98% and 99%
occupancy of its ICU beds in September and the first days of October.
Cipolletti has a doubling of cases in 19 days.
On Wednesday the Pedro Moguillansky hospital was left
without oxygen supply
in two moments.
"It was a system failure due to the rupture of a valve, which caused a pressure drop. The over-demand of many teams is beginning to be exposed," said its director, Claudia Muñoz, to La Mañana.
According to reports, although a backup system was put into operation, some patients were assisted
manually
.
At the end of September,
Clarín
announced the case of the nurse Ariel López, from Castro Rendón, who set up an ICU in the house of his uncle Miguel Fuentealba (84) who was very ill and due to his age and background, he was not immediately admitted to the zonal hospital of Cipolletti.
Finally, after 10 days, the man was transferred to the hospital where he died.
Three large cities of Neuquén and Río Negro maintain very high levels of occupancy of beds in ICUs.
Photo Courtesy of Río Negro Diary
“In all the health institutions (of the capital of Neuquén) what changes is the degree of complexity that each one has.
The Castro Rendón receives the most complicated patients and there are other hospitals that are of less complexity that receive the more moderate patients.
They are all with the number of beds at the top, this is not exclusive to a particular place,
all the institutions are like this, saturated,
”said the president of the Neuquén Medical College, Omar Alvaro, to El Cordillerano.
In
Neuquén
and
Río Negro,
the health authorities also cross their fingers so that infections do not soar in about 15 days as a result of the possible encounters that occurred in the province during Mother's Day.
“Between Covid and non-Covid, the occupancy is 99%” in the capital
Andréa Peve, Neuquén's Minister of Health,
explains
Clarín
.
According to the last part of the province, Neuquén has
11,364 active cases and 368 deaths
.
In Health, there is also fear of internal migration on the part of residents who move to the Cordillera in search of safer spaces and fresh air.
In the last hours, San Martín de los Andes reported only 3 cases and Villa La Angostura none.
In Cipolletti there are already 1,188 active cases, while in its neighbor, General Roca, 671 are registered. Bariloche is still below with 601.
On the other hand, in the last hours the staff of the Francisco López Lima de General Roca and Ramón Carrillo de Bariloche hospitals demonstrated at the entrance doors of the institutions to demand that the province
update their salaries
in a context in which all They are going through continuous situations of stress and work overload.
The two health centers bring together nearly 2,000 workers from the sector.
"We are
tired, saturated
, with many hours of work, with complaints because salaries are low and all this seems to have no end. The most optimistic think of a reduction in cases in two months. But hey, it is what there is, and what The only thing we can do is go on and on and on, "
a doctor at the Roca hospital
tells
Clarín
.
Bariloche. Correspondent.
DD
