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Differences and doubts about intensive care beds: what occupation is there in Buenos Aires public hospitals

2021-04-14T18:10:48.441Z


There are unions that say that the numbers they have are higher than the official ones, which speak of 50% of beds occupied.


Karina Niebla

04/14/2021 2:41 PM

  • Clarín.com

  • Cities

Updated 04/14/2021 2:41 PM

Far from flattening out, the curve of the second wave of coronavirus seems to have no ceiling yet.

This Monday, the City of Buenos Aires set another daily record of Covid infections in residents: 3,185.

In this scenario, the question arises:

how has the health system in the City not yet collapsed?

Or did it actually do so, or is it close to doing so?

In recent days, spreadsheets with supposed levels of occupancy of beds in Intensive Care Units (ICU) in Buenos Aires health centers circulate through the networks.

In some cases, close to 100%.

However,

these data have no source

.

Meanwhile, public and private health entities issue statements in which they alert about the situation of ICUs throughout the AMBA, with full knowledge of the facts.

The first problem that arises when you want to analyze the data is the criteria when displaying it.

To know how close to the

limit the health system is

, it is necessary to know the percentage of

beds occupied by all inmates in ICUs

, regardless of why they are there.

The City Government, on the other hand, publishes in its daily part only

how many are used in patients with Covid

, which this Tuesday were half of the beds available: 50.4% among seriously ill patients, 35.5 in moderate ones and a 9.7 in mild.

The second problem appears when the first one wants to be solved by looking for the ICU occupancy data in general:

Clarín

consulted the national and Buenos Aires health portfolios about the percentages of use of beds in private health centers in the City, but at the end of this note it was still he had not received the requested information. 

Rows for swabs in Buenos Aires public hospitals.

The occupation of intensive therapy beds, according to data from the Buenos Aires government, is 50%, but doctors and unions maintain that there are hospitals in which it is higher.

Photo: Juan Manuel Foglia.

Representatives of the public and private health sector of the City handle some figures.

The Argentine Health Union (UAS), the organization that brings together most of the private medicine organizations,

estimates the occupancy level of ICU beds

in clinics and sanatoriums in Buenos Aires

at 95%

.

One of the entities that make up the Argentine Federation of Health Providers (FAPS) arrived at the same percentage.

In the Association of Municipal Doctors (AMM), meanwhile, they maintain that the figures they handle in the public sphere 

are higher than the official ones

.

“The report that the Buenos Aires government sends us indicates 68% occupancy of ICU beds in hospitals at a general level, if those of Covid and non-Covid patients are added.

But when we walk through the establishments we corroborate that the percentage is higher,

in some cases more than 90%.

The Penna, the Piñero and the Fernández are among the most complicated, ”says Jorge Gilardi, president of the entity and a gynecologist in Piñero.

Martín is a clinical doctor at the Ramos Mejía Hospital, in Balvanera.

She works in a "Covid Room", where patients with moderate and severe cases that do not require intubation are admitted.

Martín is not really called that, but he prefers to keep his identity confidential.

Our ICU is 100%

for at least two or three weeks.

The inpatient guard room is being used as an intensive care room, but it does not have trained doctors or infrastructure, ”says Martín, who is not Martín.

Rows for swabs in Buenos Aires public hospitals.

The occupation of intensive therapy beds, according to data from the Buenos Aires government, is 50%, but doctors and unions maintain that there are hospitals in which it is higher.

Photo: Juan Manuel Foglia.

As in other hospitals, in Ramos Mejía “

Coronary Unit

beds are used for Covid

, which are for heart attack and heart patients,” the doctor explains.

All the on-call consultation boxes are usually crowded with Covid patients mixed with non-Covid ones.

And at times people are on morphine for lack of air, waiting for a bed in the living room ”.

A scenario that is also observed in other Buenos Aires hospitals.

“Those in the red ring, who are those with Covid Intensive Therapy, are

using the facilities of other areas or services:

guard rooms, pediatric units, shock rooms, surgery or trauma beds.

The ICUs are not enough, ”says Emilio“ Chino ”Borlenghi, member of the Safety and Hygiene Committee of the City's Assembly of Residents and Attendees.

Similar postcards are also seen in the private sphere.

"Critical beds are being opened without having enough staff to do so, covering it with residents and doctors from other specialties, and even closing pediatric guards," says Fernando Araneo, doctor at the Güemes Sanatorium and union prosecutor of the Association of Private Activity Physicians. (AMAP).

"For now

, the system has not finished collapsing because many people who are infected are young,"

Gilardi explains, "and most of the people in that age group do not go to ICUs.

But many do and, in those cases, it means that the frame is much more aggressive.

Hopefully the new measures will pay off.

There are a few days to see if this is the case ”.

SC

Look also

Although they are at the occupancy limit, the sanatoriums still do not release non-Covid intensive care beds

Source: clarin

All news articles on 2021-04-14

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