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The second wave of the coronavirus and the problems facing healthcare professionals were discussed at a meeting of the Union of the Homeland-Lithuanian Christian Democrats in the Seimas on Tuesday.
Rolanda Lingienė, director of the Vilnius Department of the National Center for Public Health, told the Seimas that the workload is huge and there is a severe shortage of epidemiologists.
“Processing so much data, collecting it and verifying it is a huge workload. The professionals are doing what they can and I think we are doing quite well at the moment.
But of course you have to prepare for the second wave that is coming. And understand that we could stay with people. As you can see, employees can no longer handle huge loads and there is enough change in them. The situation does not end as quickly as we would like.
We have a problem with the lack of specialists. But they started missing not yesterday, but for several years. Epidemiologists are simply on the decline. People are not interested in finishing this major and going to work. {…} You can’t really call them, salaries are not competitive and that’s a big problem. It is practically accepted by people from other fields and it is not the best solution, ”said R. Lingienė, noting that there is currently a lack of them in Vilnius, and at least more in Lithuania.
R. Lingienė said Tuesday that due to the heavy workload, many epidemiologists and specialists left their jobs, but 38 people were hired.
Veryga: “We will not prepare all specialists for all situations”
Health Minister Aurelius Veryga said he did not know how they calculated the shortage of specialists. According to the minister, no new posts are currently planned.
“I don’t know if anyone has named any deficiencies. We will probably not be prepared by all specialists for all situations, so in absolutely all possible cases it will be enough.
In such emergencies, when an unforeseen situation occurs, it is used by institutions other than the public health center. “There are written orders for our subordinate institutions to simply delegate people who often have a public health education and can provide fireplaces for research or otherwise, which is important to the National Center for Public Health,” said A. Veryga.
According to A. Veryga, the state has been reducing the number of budget employees for many years, so it will not fill the gaps during the day: “We are looking for solutions that are short and fast. But it can certainly happen that the NVSC can’t keep up. “
“I agree that salaries are not very motivating. As much money as possible was allocated. In the future, there will probably be enough motivation to approve the budget to evaluate the people who work in such institutions and provide higher salaries, ”said A. Veryga.
“The number of people exposed has increased by thousands”
When asked why residents sometimes don’t get the help they need, they turn to the coronavirus hotline. R. Lingienė stated that he currently has about 200 volunteers, but there are also many applicants. According to R. Lingienė, there may have been contact contacts between dissatisfied people, for whom tests are not urgently needed until symptoms appeared.
“The number of people exposed has increased by thousands as people lead active lives. {…} Since yesterday, epidemiologists at the Center for Public Health have been registering those who had contact,” said R. Lingienė.
R. Lingienė said that a person who had contact should not be examined before the fifth day: “There is really no need to be examined before the fifth day after contact.”
Professor Vytautas Usonis said the public lacks information on who the contact is and when the person should be investigated. If you do the study too early, that answer can be misleading.
“There are deadlines for the investigation. Rumors are circulating about those rapid tests. It is very clear when a person should be tested, which is very poor and very difficult to obtain. People often do not understand why they are not given a study right away. Lack of communication really causes dissatisfaction, “said V. Usonis, noting that contact is considered when a person has been around an infected person long enough.
The professor said that we have no other means of protecting ourselves against the coronavirus than social distance, the use of masks and control of communication time.
The teacher lacks communication between professionals
The professor also said that there is a lack of communication in the health field, and cooperation must be in several areas.
“Scientific groups, groups of consultants who advise the Government in one or another structure, unfortunately we lack this. There is a great lack of scientific analysis and scientific dialogue in this COVID-19 situation.
There are proposals from the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences and official proposals to bring together a pool of qualified scientists. Perhaps not only those who work not only from Lithuania and those who work in the field of communicable disease management. They could do that analytical work and provide scientific and strategic advice. Now everyone talks about the lack of epidemiologists {…} it is also necessary to plan their training ”, said V. Usonis.
R. Lingienė at the Seimas also answered questions from conservatives about who and how they make decisions when the situation changes daily. She said decisions about what to do next are made by the ministry or the government, depending on the situation. According to R. Lingienė, the answer depends on whether we manage the situation or whether the chimneys are localized.
“There are no specific numbers of what to do, we just react to the situation. The number of cases is not equal to the number of cases. It is very important if those chimneys in Lithuania are defined or localized, where they spread and how they are managed. Currently, the increased spread in chimneys and some chimneys is cause for concern, as in Radviliškis, ”said R. Lingienė.
There were 88 new cases of coronavirus in the last day
Last day, 88 new cases of coronavirus were detected in Lithuania, the total number of cases in the country reaches 4,578, the Ministry of Health announced on Tuesday.
Currently 2,118 people are still infected with coronavirus and 2,349 have recovered.
A total of 92 people have died since COVID-19 and 19 people have died from other causes.
The isolation contains 22 thousand. 976 people.
As of June 1, 269 import cases had been identified in Lithuania.
During the previous day, 6,378 samples were analyzed for suspected coronavirus. So far a total of 767 thousand have been investigated. 994 samples.
More cases were registered than during the entire month of July
On Monday, the news portal tv3.lt announced that there have been more cases in the last three days than in the whole of July, said epidemiologist Daiva Razmuvienė. She assured that the situation is under control, but that precautions are more important than ever.
The chief specialist of the Communicable Disease Management Division of the National Public Health Center (NVSC) reported that up to 306 cases had been recorded in the last three days.
“Compared with July, 275 cases were registered during the entire period, 275 cases. From September 1 to 27, more than 1,500 cases have already been registered,” said the epidemiologist.
D. Razmuvienė also summarized the changing situation due to the age of the patients. According to her, compared to the beginning of the pandemic, now a group of people under the age of 19, that is, children, represents 12 percent. sick. At the time, 14 percent were ill among those over 61.
“Those age figures changed, if we look at July, September, then the number of older people with diseases decreased and that age group increased from 19 to 49 years. This is a young age to work, as demonstrated by the European Center for the Disease Prevention However, the percentage of older people, which today is only around 14%, still has the highest risk of death, ”said the epidemiologist.
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