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An army of cranes works non-stop near Madrid airport to build the “pandemic hospital”, but the second wave of the covid-19 epidemic has already started and is putting the health system to the test, reports AFP, writes News.ro.
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Along the highway, dozens of trucks kick up clouds of dust in a huge empty field, where nearly 450 workers have been working day and night since July. Concrete mixers make continuous concrete, pipes pour cement, and welders spray sparks from tall columns.
“Two months ago, there was nothing here,” says smiling Alejo Mirando, director of Health Infrastructures of the Community of Madrid, the most affected by the covid-19 in spring.
Financed by the regional government with an amount “exceeding 50 million euros”, the Isabel Zendal Hospital, nicknamed the “hospital of the pandemic”, a huge complex of 45,000 square meters can accommodate more than 1,000 patients in case of crisis sanitary.
The architecture – windows for monitoring patients without contamination, large rooms without individual rooms, rooms with negative pressure for autopsies – was designed, says Alejo Mirando, to “avoid the transmission of viral load” and is inspired by Ifema, the park of exhibitions were transformed from March to May into a field hospital.
A promise of better preparation against a second wave of the covid-19 epidemic, yet this hospital will be delivered too late to treat the wave of patients that is already overwhelming healthcare facilities.
“STOPPING THE WAVE”
“We are concerned about the evolution of the epidemic in Madrid,” acknowledged this Monday the President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, while anxiously monitoring the region of more than 6.5 million inhabitants, which represents almost a quarter of the more than 29,000 deaths from covid -19 in the country.
In the last seven days, Madrid has registered 73 of the 191 deaths and 30% of the cases detected.
The situation is “very, very worrying,” admits Dr. Silvia Durán, spokesperson for the Association of Physicians of Amyts, who cites “a rapid progression” of the contagion curve, “similar to that of the beginning of the pandemic.
“Health centers (where doctors paid by the region work) manage to stop the second wave”, but “hospitals are preparing and 16% of their beds are already occupied by patients with covid-19”, compared to 6 % in the rest of the country, he continued.
“We are on the verge of collapse,” confirms José Molero of the CSIT Union. “The next stage will be when the population goes directly to the hospital, because it can no longer be received by doctors.”
The lack of staff, resources and rest makes doctors “tired”, exhausted, because they receive “up to 60 patients” a day, he continues.
“HIGH RISK AREA”
Madrid, densely populated and the country’s transportation hub, is a “high-risk area,” Fernando Simón, chief epidemiologist at the Health Ministry, said Monday.
But the region, which is competent in the field of health, wants to offer insurance.
“The situation is, for the moment, bearable,” Antonio Zapatero, the regional public health adviser, told AFP, acknowledging an increase of “a month and a half” in cases, especially in the “southern region.”
Governed by the Popular Party (PP, right, opposition), the region ended up asking for the benefit of 150 soldiers, who were placed at its disposal by the Spanish left-wing government to help it identify the contacts of patients with covid-19. .
This announcement was not enough. A group of doctors intends to file a complaint against the regional government, while several hundred more demand, in an open letter, “to act to prevent a new collapse of the health system.”
Among other things, medical personnel request to be hired or to work remotely, to avoid becoming infected.
“We are the ones who are going to improve,” Silvia Durán warns, recalling that Spain held the world record for contaminated medical personnel in April (20% of cases), according to a European health report.
“We need to create synergies between political leaders and scientists, without which the self-anomaly will start badly. We cannot afford to relive what we experienced in spring,” said Pilar Serrano, secretary of the Madrid Public Health Association.
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