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"To the limit": this is Uruguay, the country with the highest rate of infections

2021-04-30T12:00:33.190Z


In Uruguay there are crowded hospitals and workers are on edge. This is how the country with the highest weekly rate of covid-19 infections lives


Overwhelmed and desperate, the health sector in Uruguay at the limit 5:10

(CNN Spanish) -

Mónica Lotti presses her face against the window of the CTI module, and looks towards where one of her patients in better health is connected to a non-invasive ventilator.

"Do you want me to bring you a radio?" He says from outside, gesturing for him to see her through the mask.

"This way your days are shorter."

The patient makes a 'no' gesture with his hand and Dr. Lotti sighs.

She turns around and tells one of the nurses the next steps they are going to try with the patient, the only one in the entire blue room of the Casmu care center, in Uruguay, who is not intubated.

The least serious of all.

  • Uruguay: from controlled covid-19 to missed opportunities

He can no longer talk to others.

It is about testing drugs, therapeutic mechanisms and waiting with faith for them to evolve.

But many of them (80% of those on respirators) die.

And she doesn't forget them.

“There are patients who cannot be forgotten.

Personally, it is difficult for me to process it and get them out of my head, ”he says.

Uruguay's tragic fortnight with covid-19 1:10

"We have a very high mortality," says Casmu's ITC coordinator, Marcelo Gilard.

A mortality rate whose rate has been growing: from 42% of all those admitted to intensive care in February to 49% in April, according to data from the Uruguayan Society of Intensive Medicine (Sumi) on the situation in Uruguayan hospitals.

During the past year, Uruguay was highlighted as one of the countries that best handled the situation.

Covid-19 infections were kept at bay, there were few deaths and practically all cases had a strict epidemiological follow-up.

However, at the end of 2020, infections began to grow more and more intensely, until, in March, that growth became exponential and the authorities announced that they had definitively lost the epidemiological thread.

This is how covid-19 cases are in America 0:47

From having one of the best results in the region, it went on to have one of the worst.

Between March and April, Uruguay became the country with the highest weekly infection rate, according to the

Our World in Data

portal

.

And that vertiginous increase in cases had its translation in the constant increase of interned in CTI, which tripled in the last 30 days.

In recent weeks there was a 23% increase in beds with respirators that prevented a sanitary collapse, but not the feeling of exhaustion of the medical staff.

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Hospitals in Uruguay, overwhelmed

"Overload". That is the word that Marcelo Gilard uses to describe the situation of the ITC in his healthcare center, which more than doubled the available beds (from 36 to 80). Of the total, 68 are intended for patients with covid-19. Even what were once pediatric wards are now dedicated to fighting the virus. The rooms are organized by colors: blue, green, white, pink and the surgical block. "And they are all busy," he clarifies.

“At one point the demand was very intense,” says Dr. Lotti, “because it grew so fast, so fast (the number of infections) and it had to be increased (the CTI capacity).

And some units needed nursing and medical staff.

Those of us who were there had to fill all the gaps ”.

Meanwhile, the nursing graduate Ana Bucer adds: “there is always income, there are no free beds, let's say.

And they are patients who come in a state that is already complicated and takes a long time to recover and there are many deceased.

So it is complicated ”.

We tell you what is the occupation of beds in your country 1:42

An overflow situation, added to the time that the doctors have been working, which has pushed the health personnel to the limit, as affirmed by the lawyer Ana Bucer. “There are situations where you are on the edge, right? But for the moment we are rowing it ”. “Overwhelmed, that's the word. Overwhelmed. At no time did I think it was going to be like this. It's exasperating sometimes, ”adds Dr. Lotti.

In the ICUs of Uruguayan hospitals, the staff seems to have come out of some futuristic, dystopian movie.

The people in here have no faces.

Tunic, over-tunic, gloves, more gloves, alcohol, hair cover, surgical masks, glasses, plastic masks… Layer after layer.

In the midst of these strict biosecurity measures, each movement, each entry to each module involves a long process.

Despite this, the situation in this regard has improved: today practically all health personnel in Uruguay who interact with covid-19 are vaccinated, which has reduced absenteeism.

The only light at the end of the tunnel

Vaccination, which is progressing at a good pace in Uruguay, is precisely the only light at the end of the tunnel that health professionals see, and that they sponsor.

Today Uruguay has 32% of its population vaccinated with one dose and 15% with both doses of the Sinovac (mostly), Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines.

Most effective vaccines against covid-19 (so far) 0:46

But that light at the end of the tunnel does not yet shine on the CTIs, which are experiencing their worst moment since the pandemic began. The light that intensivists do see is that of the street, when they leave their medical guards. Monica Lotti tells how she feels when her watch ends, usually a couple of hours after her schedule. It takes “a long time to realize that I am somewhere else. To be able to recover my feeling, my life ”, he explains. Marcelo Gilard feels something similar, who says that, before reaching his house, he usually needs to walk around the square near where he lives, trying to lower tensions and recover his life.

But one of the things that most impacts both of them is the intense movement they see in the streets of Montevideo: something that the country's doctors and scientists have recommended reducing, to try to reduce infections.

"Seeing people in parks, without masks, sharing food, drinks ... maybe those people should go around here, for a CTI, visit a CTI and experience what an afternoon here is like," says Gilard.

“They are like two totally separate worlds.

Others ”, supports Lotti.

And Ms. Bucer adds: "sometimes I think why they don't live what we do."

(Credit: Ernesto Ryan / Getty Images)

And what many of them experience does not end the lives of those patients who cannot be saved in the Uruguayan hospitals. Mónica Lotti has been working as an intensivist for more than two decades, and assures that she has always handled "quite well" permanent coexistence with death. But now he sees that everything has changed: "Seeing a patient with whom we spoke, we have a good relationship, he is spectacular this afternoon (...) and the next day when I arrive he is dead and I have to inform the family." “Because before, patients stopped, died, but not in this way. Not this way. It is emotionally much more difficult, if one takes the work of processing it seriously. And sometimes some patients hit and hit very hard more than others ”.

At the time of writing this note, the patient in the blue room who was awake and in better condition than the rest is intubated.

His condition worsened and he fights for his life.

coronavirus

Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2021-04-30

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