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Marta Temido revealed this Monday that admissions to Covid-19 in hospitals, in nursing and intensive care units, are expected to exceed 3,000 next week. According to the projections of the National Institute of Health Doutor Ricardo Jorge, As of November 4, an estimated 2,634 patients and 444 are in intensive care units. On Wednesday, October 28, the maximum number of patients hospitalized in intensive care registered in the first wave, of 271, should be exceeded.
I don’t say that on the 4th [de novembro] We will have the worst scenario, I am saying that the calculations go up to 4 and that 4 brings a highly complex scenario ”, he explains. “Are we going to be able to respond to that day 4? We will have, but already with great complexity, what will be our need to adapt to what is the response to other healthcare activities ”.
For the Minister of Health, there is no doubt that the scenario could be worse “if we continue to have a progression of infection transmission and we cannot reverse it” and he warns that “the capacity is relatively dynamic and flexible”. In a situation “already very extreme in response to peaks of influx”, the Portuguese “can count as 17 thousand beds in wards and 800 intensive care units”.
However, while the NHS is “better prepared” to respond to the pandemic, the situation in Portugal is complex ”and“ serious ”. “No health system has elastic capacity, so we must imperatively preserve the response capacity of our hospitals,” he emphasizes, adding that “like all health systems, the SNS has limits.”
The Health Ministry says it is prepared to refer non-Covid-19 patients who have consultations, tests or surgeries on the NHS due to the worsening of the pandemic for the private and social sectors. “What we do today will impact the infections that happen tomorrow and these infections will have an impact on hospitalizations that happen the following week, on admission to intensive care and, eventually, on deaths ”.
Dreaded guarantees that “there is no time to waste” and, therefore, “it is necessary that each one does what is in his power” to stop the transmission of the infection. “No investment that the Government can make goes beyond the need for each one to respond as best as possible to what is in their hands (…) They are shared responsibilities and the NHS asks for everyone’s help to better play their role” .
Marta Temido also admits that The executive can advance with the escalation of measures at the local level, as happened last week for the municipalities of Paços de Ferreira, Felgueiras and Lousada, all to “help the country control this new growth in transmission.” “What the government decided was to adopt the state of calamity in order to have the sufficient framework to, according to the risk assessment of each municipality or region, to be able to aggravate the measures. That assessment is done and it is possible that more serious measures will now be enacted. “
At the same press conference, Temido said that if necessary, the Ministry of Health “will manage in all regions” to ensure a concerted response from the NHS, because “the regions are not blocked.”
Regarding the care activity for patients with other pathologies, the minister pointed out that the recovery effort was “remarkable” and “significant”. The recovery of non-Covid-19 activity “had only a difference of 600,000 consultations between urgent and non-urgent in primary health care until September with respect to the same period, in a volume of 31 million”, however, the minister acknowledges that the exponential increase Cases can re-condition the response of the SNS.
The recovery effort was significant. In hospitals, the scenario was also one of improvement, but not so advantageous. And we have recovery programs for assistance activities with direct incentives for health professionals. But, if that does not arrive – and admitting that it does not arrive, given the deprogramming of activity that we will have to do – the referral to the other agreed sectors will occur according to what the needs and interests of the patients are ”.
In the same communication to the country, the minister announced that there is an increase in the number of cases in all age groups in Portugal, with more expression in the range of 20 to 39 years and in individuals older than 85 years. a situation that can lead to “an increase in hospitalizations and deaths in the coming weeks”.
