Clinics reduce areas for Covid cases

Santo Domingo, DR
The president of the National Association of Private Clinics and Hospitals (Andeclip), Rafael Mena, acknowledged yesterday that private medical centers have reduced by more than 50% the wards available for Covid-19 patients.

He indicated that there is the inconvenience that personnel is reluctant to work in those areas at present.

“It is true that in some places of the country that has been experienced with the decrease, prior to this Covid wave, the habilitation rooms for Covid were reduced by more than 50%, because they are special rooms, that is to say, not only that other people cannot enter and that they have to be isolated, but you must have a determined staff,” explained Dr. Mena to Listín Diario.

Staff
He gave the example that in a Covid area of a clinic, there are three nurses per shift in the case of the nurses. If you multiply it by three, there are nine, and one of surcharge, there are 12, besides the bioanalysts, X-ray personnel, hygiene, and stretcher-bearers.

“It is quite complex, then having decreased the cases, everything was decreased in most cases,” said Mena.

He explained that in Santiago, to cite an example, the cases have increased; it is where the agreement has been reached the most, but “in the rest of the country, it is true what you say, it has decreased because we have also had the inconvenience that also the personnel has been more difficult to find, because there is greater reluctance to work again.”

Another detail he explained is that the severe cases that occurred at the beginning of the pandemic and which required, in addition to intensive care, respirators, and this type of special care, now only happen very sporadically.

Dr. Mena attributes this decrease in serious cases to the fact that many people are vaccinated against the Coronavirus in the country. However, he urged the population to continue to be inoculated against the virus because he believes that this resurgence of the Omicron variant will not be as serious as the last time. The penultimate wave was due to the Delta variant, which caused greater severity and the admission of delicate patients.

“Now I understand that people are a little worried and that they do not have the same facilities at home to handle them (the patients) and they want the clinics to help them, but we are again looking to see how the situation resumes. I hope that this week the situation will start to go down again and return to normality,” said the president of Andeclip.

Risk
Referring to the reluctance of certain health personnel to join the covid areas, Mena said that their allegation is that they have been contaminated.

“They say that they have been contaminated, because now there have been more cases of infections and you know that we cannot force either, so we have to be a little consistent with that,” said the physician. In the case of Santiago, where centers are operating at almost 100%, the situation is more tense than in Santo Domingo. Still, the clinics have provided the previously offered service, and there has been a response for those cases. With pregnant women, Dr. Mena said that the clinics always have beds reserved for the emergencies of this segment of the population and for deliveries.

Journalist Edith Febles denounced yesterday that there is a very serious situation that requires the intervention of the Ministry of Public Health as the regulatory body of the health system.

Rebuttals.
Edith Febles said on her Twitter account that several private clinics are bouncing Covid-19 positive patients who require admission despite having beds available for some reason unknown to her.

The communicator also denounced bounces of Covid-19 positive pregnant women in the last few hours in five clinics in the National District and Santo Domingo province.

“These rejections are occurring despite the fact that there is free capacity available,” she said on the social network.