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“It’s one thing to see the numbers and analyze the trends in an Excel table. But the numbers do not tell us everything, we need to understand what is behind these numbers and what is the reality of hospitals and health centers, how professionals are working, what pressure they feel. and the difficulties they have, ”said Patrícia Pacheco, director of the Infectious Diseases Service of the Fernando Fonseca Hospital, this morning, in an interview with Rádio Observador.
The specialist, who has been critical of the Government in handling the pandemic from the beginning, accused the Minister of Health of being disconnected from the reality that currently exists in health units and of refusing to take effective measures to stop the spread. of the virus. “There is a parallel universe. We all live in the same number and in the same country, but whoever is on the ground does not live the same reality as the Minister of Health“, He said.
I find this extraordinary. Everyone is warning and the only person not looking at this is the minister, who devalues everything and contradicts each statement as if it were persecution. It is not: they are alerts that arise from the anguish of those who are on the ground and realize that reality is different, “he added, and then predicted:” The risk of collapse of the health system is real. If these numbers hold up in two weeks, we will collapse. “
“With these numbers in two weeks, we collapsed. Minister does not live the reality of those who are on the ground “
Although we are still more than two months from the start of winter and “still in an initial phase”, warns the director of Infectious Sciences of Amadora-Sintra, Hospital capacity is already at alert levels, with some units in the second phase, and others even in the third, of the respective contingency plans.
There are not enough beds within the installed capacity of the National Health Service (SNS) at present to attend a very large volume of patients who attend almost at the same time. Since the beginning of September we have a growing number of hospitalized patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection, the capacity of the hospitals has been exceeded so far ”, he assured.
Despite what was guaranteed, and with the exception of not knowing the reality of the north of the country, where the Government has already guaranteed that the SNS is working in a network, the specialist also added: to the south, in the Lisbon region and the Tagus Valley, “there is no regional response”. “There is one-off help, which is always nominal: we need places today, we call, we ask and hospitals, to the best of their capacities, cooperate in the transfer of one, two or three patients,” he explained.
“It is not a networked, organized and coordinated response. And for a long time we have been asking that this answer be created, in a real-time system, in the background such as INEM or CODU [Centros de Orientação de Doentes Urgentes] We have, which will distribute to patients according to the installed capacities of each hospital. In patients with Covid there is no coordination. There was never government interest in doing this“Accused Patrícia Pacheco.
Marta Temido responds to the open letter from the doctors: “Why are they pushing us?”
Another failure of the executive, points out the expert, will reside in the reluctance to include individuals in the specific effort to combat Covid-19. Marta Temido’s response to the letter signed by the presidents of the Order of Physicians (current and former) to request that – said the Minister of Health this Wednesday night, in an interview with TVI, which seems to be trying to “push” The Government in that direction – will be, determined Patrícia Pacheco – one more proof of ignorance.
If we ask to include individuals and social entities in the national response, it is because we realize that alone we will not achieve it. It is not after the ship sinks that they will see if they see the lifebuoys of private entities, the answer must be built now “, defended the specialist before revealing that the Amadora-Sintra Hospital is already hired, every year . and without pandemic, in winter, beds in private hospitals.
“They are answers that do not arrive and depend on the administration of each hospital and the specific reality of each hospital. It has to be an extended situation“Added the specialist, making sure to always work and work exclusively for the NHS.
“Hospitals are not designed for pandemics or infections. The spaces between beds are very narrow. We are not in a country, like Sweden, where rooms are individual in most hospitals. We are talking about Portugal, which has an internment in which there are rooms with 3 beds, 4 beds, 6 beds. The real risk here is that we get infections inside the hospital.“Explained the specialist. “How can we reduce it? Spacing the sick. And all this means that hospitals are losing hospitalization capacity ”.
In addition to being able to help receive patients infected by the new coronavirus, he concluded, the help of individuals and social entities could also be very useful to fill another void, which with the increase in new cases will also tend to worsen. : “It is not just Covid patients, all other patients have, and will have, serious difficulties accessing their health care maintenance.“.
