How a 33-Year-Old Man Leaves in One Day – Analysis

© Georgi Kozhukharov

“Dnevnik” republished from dir.bg (with his permission) the shocking story of a relative of the 33-year-old man who died of coronavirus in Sofia two days ago, while waiting for an ambulance and a bed in a hospital. The case sparked sympathy for the family and outrage from the organization at the system on social media. On the occasion, the spokeswoman for the Emergency Service Katya Sungarska told “Dnevnik” that this is not the first case of this type and it will not be the last, because at the moment the center is overloaded and reacts with a long signal delay. It is partly due to the necessary disinfection of the ambulances. According to her, there is no problem with the shortage of cars, but with the lack of doctors. The Health Ministry is investigating the case, but there are no official results yet.

The day is October 30. My relative (this is my friend’s brother) was diagnosed with COVID-19, he has a positive PCR test from the Friday before. In general, his condition was good, during the week he had a fever, but then to bring it down, he had a mild cough. He was taking medications, antibiotics, quarantine, fluids, and all the standard things he recommended for home treatment.

Thus begins the story of the last hours of a life and the experiences of his relatives: his parents, his brother and his girlfriend. It was she, without revealing her name, only the first letters of it – IP, she told Dir.bg what happened. We convey the story without interfering with its essence. And the title is yours …

“On the morning of October 30, her parents called us

he was not feeling well at night, his blood pressure was very low and he was quite dizzy.

We immediately tried to contact your personal physician, as well as any known physician who recommended that we take the usual things to raise your blood pressure, which will not harm you when taking other medications. We stayed in touch with him all day, he had managed to stabilize his blood pressure around noon and was feeling fine, but by early afternoon there was dizziness and tinnitus. We also learned from acquaintances that all the wards are full and there is total chaos in Sofia regarding the accommodation of COVID patients.

Around 16-17 in the afternoon he felt very ill, his blood pressure dropped a lot – 50 to 90, he was dizzy and said he was starting to breathe heavily. And since then, the problem of finding a place to receive it has started.

We decided to register first in the private hospitals, because the public ones are certainly crowded.

First call to Sofiamed. We called the ER, where he picked up a woman (whose position we do not know) and she said she needed to speak to the doctor to tell him if she could accept it, but the doctor was busy at the moment and we had to call. then.

Then we called Tokuda, where they sent us back to another phone, where they told us that there was a distribution center and that we had to call there. All the time I was trying to find the telephones of this center, the emergency telephone number of the RHI, an emergency telephone number or a list of hospitals with COVID rooms, but to no avail.

We called several private ambulances to see if they could at least examine him, because we didn’t know why his condition was deteriorating so quickly, but they told us they were only transporting patients at the moment, they had no doctors and

it is better to find a place to accommodate you first and then call them,

so that the patient is not lost throughout Sofia.

A new call to Sofiamed followed, where we have already explained that the patient is in serious condition, we can only bring him in to confirm that he will be examined and that they have a bed. The same response followed that we should speak to the doctor on duty, and he is currently busy. So in a few minutes we called them two more times, and the fourth time the doctor answered, he heard the problem and said he didn’t know why we were calling him, because there was a distribution center and he couldn’t help.

We decided there was nothing else to wait and we had to call 112 to record the signal and wait for an ambulance to arrive. We explained by phone that it is a 33-year-old young man, with no other illnesses, who has a CRP test, is getting worse with every minute that passes and needs urgent medical attention. From there they advised us to be patient and that they would send a team when they had the opportunity. This happened at 6:30 p.m.

And from here just waiting.

We went to the front of the block to wait for the ambulance and see where they could take him. Meanwhile, I took it upon myself to call all the hospitals in Sofia to see where there are places and where they can receive it. The only option left is to call the private ambulance as soon as they confirm that it will be accepted somewhere so that you can transport it.

First call to “Pirogov” – there are no places, they explained to me to call the coordination center, but they couldn’t give me their phone number because they were new centers and they still don’t know their contacts. They were in an infectious disease hospital. Call the Hospital for Infectious Diseases – no one answered.

We called Alexandrovska Hospital, where after another transfer I contacted a woman who explained that they had no beds, but we could take him for an exam and if he was really in bad shape they couldn’t refuse to examine him in any way. hospital.

We also called ISUL, there are no places either, there was nothing they could do. Review also refused.

We called First City Hospital – the on-call response, there are no places, in memory at least they gave me the phone number of the coordination center so that I could call them and see where there are places and take it to them.

The Center told me that there are no free beds anywhere in Sofia,

They can’t examine it and there are currently two ambulances sitting and waiting with patients inside for a bed to be vacated somewhere. I don’t know how to make the beds at 7 in the afternoon and I don’t want to think about it.

In the meantime, we called 112 several times to say the person was getting worse, to ask if it was clear when he would come for at least a while, but they said they couldn’t tell us anything because it was full everywhere and there were patients waiting. from 15 to 16 hours in the afternoon.

During this time we also called St. Anna, the Military Medical Academy, Second City Hospital, various private hospitals: “St. Catherine”, “Doverie”, “Serdika”, they did not pick up any of the listed contact numbers.

We decided that we would take him to Alexandrovska to at least examine him and if they could give him first aid, but on my second call my doctor yelled at me and explained that a person with such low blood pressure was for hospitalization and there was nothing they could do. and I hung up my phone.

Another call to “Pirogov”, from where they told me directly “bring it, we will not accept it.”

With each passing minute the man grew worse, with more and more difficulty breathing. During the next call to 112, his doctor on call wanted to speak directly to him and during their conversation, in addition to being rude and scolding him for not being able to tell him exactly what medications he was taking, she told him that at least he would have to wait another hour, to even though he had told her it was very bad.

We continue to wait and try to contact a hospital, on the recommendation of our acquaintances we called the Fourth City, where they confirmed that they have beds and we can take him by private ambulance. We immediately called an ambulance, the man said he would be there in 20 minutes. We called Fourth City again to confirm that they would accept him so that we would not take him from hospital to hospital in this condition. 15 minutes later, his roommate, who was in contact with him and was also in quarantine, called us saying that he was already breathing heavily and had passed out.

My friend couldn’t stand it and went up (equipped with a mask because we had it handy) to see what was going on. The private ambulance arrived about 2-3 minutes later and the man got in very fast.

But it’s too late. They gave him a heart massage for about 20 minutes,

the man from the private ambulance immediately called an ambulance to tell them that the situation was very critical. Maybe 40 minutes after the whole incident, the state ambulance finally arrived, 4 hours (18:30 – 22:30) after the signal. And just to set death and say there’s nothing they can do

If you are wondering how a healthy young man with coronavirus is doing – well, with treatment by phone, 4 hours waiting for an ambulance, calling various hospitals, what not, refusing to accept him from everywhere or at least to examine him, total neglect of all medical equipment, whether public or private, lack of adequate help, lack of desire to save lives, even basic organization and clarity on how to act in such a situation. Everyone must save themselves, as they can and if they can.

The pain remains for us, his relatives, for a ruined young life, and I define the whole situation as murder: the murderer is our health system, the doctors who told me yesterday that they would not accept it, and an ambulance that would not accept it. He said he reacted slowly, I’d say he didn’t react at all. “