Physician says exclusive emergency room for Covid-19 patients has impact on low mortality in the midst of pandemic

Specialized care, the necessary equipment, and trained medical personnel, as implemented by some centers since the beginning of the pandemic, are the factors that have contributed to the fact that the Covid-19 emergency service has a significantly low mortality rate in the country.

The Dominican Republic has a low pandemic case fatality rate. “We have two totally divided areas, the regular patients we see with other pathologies and those who are covid-19 positive or have some symptoms,” said Dr. Francisco Méndez, Emergency Medical Coordinator of the Centers for Advanced Diagnosis and Medicine and Medical Conferences and Telemedicine (CEDIMAT).

The internist-intensivist physician explains that such is the level of independence between one emergency and another that they have separate triage, which prevents a person attending with an emergency condition unrelated to the virus from having to be exposed alongside those possibly infected or already confirmed.

“At CEDIMAT we have been very careful with this aspect, to the point that both emergencies are totally separate from the Covid-19 outpatient clinic,” says Méndez.

Monitoring and ventilation. He affirms that the center has one of the few emergency services only for Covid-19 patients in the country. It has continuous monitoring in all the cubicles and the availability of oxygen and ventilation to support all the patients in that area.

Méndez adds that “the center has focused in these times of pandemic on having everything necessary for the first covid-19 care, without leaving aside the regular emergency situations.”

“This is done with the purpose that if the inpatient area is saturated, then having the possibility of giving support to those people in what is found to where to transfer it to an intensive care unit,” he notes.

Medical team. The team is made up of a group of physicians, all specialists in the area of emergency and internal medicine, who regularly have an internist and an emergency physician on duty around the clock, explains Méndez.

We also have a team of nurses with extensive knowledge in the management of critical illnesses,” he adds. The doctor assures that this broad effort to strengthen every aspect involving emergency care for positive patients has helped the medical center obtain a better result at a time of high infection rates in the country.

The Dominican Republic has 3,846 reported deaths, with a case fatality rate of 1.17% and mortality per million population of 368.09. Since the beginning of the pandemic, 1,725,408 tests have been performed, equivalent to 165,135 per million people.

Having an exclusive emergency for covid-19 is costly, but the need to save lives is taken into account first.

Need
Patients arrive at the emergency and do not need to interact with others who have other ailments. However, the covid-19 pandemic prompted health center managers to get creative and look for ways to improve healthcare resources.

Initiative
The initiative seeks to expedite the stay of patients in the area and guarantee the life of people affected with covid-19. As a result, more than 15,000 people have been treated at CEDIMAT, the level of admissions has not been so high, and the success has been the care provided to the patients.