Pediatricians are exhausted by high demand for dengue cases

Santo Domingo —The medical staff is exhausted due to the large number of patients being treated for dengue and other respiratory conditions that are keeping the emergency rooms and offices of public and private hospitals overcrowded.

Dr. Griselys Alcántara pointed out that patients infected by the virus transmitted by the bite of the Aedes aegypti mosquito need special treatment and constant supervision.

“A person affected by dengue requires 24-hour supervision, due to the fact that it is an unpredictable disease that does not represent a danger now, and after half an hour it worsens,” Alcántara said.

At the Unión Médica del Norte clinic, where she directs the intensive care area, they maintain surveillance of patients with shifts of up to 24 hours.

Margarita Santana, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the Unión Médica, added that the treatment for this virus is “totally exhausting.”

“The truth is that I don’t think there is a pediatrician in the public or private sector who is not exhausted, due to the great demand,” she said.

In addition to the large number of suspected cases of dengue, which so far this year exceeds 14,000, there are also patients with other conditions that present themselves in the emergency room.

Statistics show that this center is attending about 300 children with febrile processes in the pediatric area, of which an average of 18 cases are positive for the disease. To date, the Unión Médica has treated 854 probable dengue fever patients.

Baby worsened due to lack of timely care.
At the door of the Emergency Room of the Hugo Mendoza Hospital, Kelcy Zabala was accompanied by her parents on her way to the cafeteria to have a quick snack since her nine-month-old baby has been in the Intensive Care Unit for two days with a positive diagnosis of dengue.

The new mother said that her situation worsened because she took him to a private clinic in Santo Domingo East, and the answer she received was to treat him with acetaminophen at home because the clinic was full. “They bounced us from the clinic, and the baby got worse,” she said.

This was the reason why they went to Hugo Mendoza, where they already had to give him a platelet transfusion because of the low level he presented.

“Here the treatment has been very good,” she added.

This Thursday, the emergency room of the health center looked more evident than on previous occasions, with only about twenty children waiting, when in the past days, there were more than 70. In the case of Robert Reid, this Thursday, there were 67 children admitted and four in intensive care.

Tests do not need an indication.
Diario Libre visited branches of private clinical laboratories to observe the demand for serological and molecular tests for dengue diagnosis.

“It is not necessary to have an indication. For antigen tests it is recommended that the patient has at least three days of fever. The PCR tests are more specialized tests that are normally done if requested by the physician,” responded a collaborator of the Amadita Laboratory.