The advance of the pandemic of coronavirus at Greater Buenos Aires gets close to point of greatest risk: the occupation of intensive care beds, the most “finite” tool in the health system, reaches the top in some public hospitals. It is a resource that cannot be stretched indefinitely. It is limited by economic capacity and because professionals trained to intervene in high complexity are over.
Although in the urban conglomerate that surrounds the Federal Capital, the percentage with patients in intensive care units (ICU) is 57.7% on average, there are already six districts that have between 75% and 90% of the places covered.
These are municipalities of the west and south of the conurbano that –together- total 14,038 infected with covid-19 (39% of the entire Province) and accumulate 227 victims (33% of the total), according to the latest records reported in the Chamber of Situation of the Buenos Aires Ministry of Health. The municipalities that have at least three out of four intensive care teams with patients on their sheets are La Matanza (it has registered 5,515 positives since the plague was declared); Quilmes (2,977 cases); José C Paz (2,346 positives); Lanús (2,125); Moreno (1,033) and Escobar (642).
System fatigue is already saturating some provincial health facilities. With the exponential increase in the number of infected in the last week (it grew 48% in just seven days in 26 jurisdictions of the GBA), four provincial health centers cannot receive more seriously ill patients for intensive care: the acute care area “Luis Güemes ”By Haedo (Morón); González Catán’s “Simply Avoid” (La Matanza) and Tigre’s “Magdalena Villegas de Martínez”. The regional hospital “Dr Iriarte” in Quilmes already covered 95% of the installed capacity of critical units according to an official report to which it agreed Clarion.
The isolation that began more than 105 days ago allowed the health equipment in the Buenos Aires territory to be reinforced. When the epidemic began, Buenos Aires had just under 2,800 ICU beds in hospitals, clinics, and sanitariums. Now it reports 5,197, of which 2,404 (46.2%) are with patients cared for and of them, 297 have covid.
That is throughout the territory. The average decreases due to the lower density of the interior. Is that the district that governs Axel KicillofIt has two distinct faces: a metropolitan area of 13 million inhabitants, overcrowded and impoverished. And a vast Pampas plain where 72 communes are already in phase 5, that is, in the new normality that is looming post-epidemic.
But back to the critical zone, there are the glances and concerns of epidemiologists. La Matanza (with an estimated population of 2.2 million) exceeded 5,500 affected, has one of the healthcare centers with complete ICUs and extensive regions of its towns with community circulation of the plague. A relaxed compliance with quarantine adheres to this scenario. Living conditions in the towns of Matanza prevent many from orderly isolation.
This weekend, Detect operatives and other active contagion search devices were deployed in the Central Market and nearby neighborhoods.
Quilmes, with almost 3,000 affected, prepared alternatives to care for the seriously ill. “All the beds in UPA 17 are still in shelter. And in the district, 66% of the cases are attended in the private subsystem, with social works ”, said municipal sources.
“You can’t just analyze the health coverage of a district. In Quilmes, in case of collapse we could refer to the ‘El Cruce’ hospital in Varela or the ‘Evita Pueblo’ in Berazategui ”, they clarify near the mayor.
Province has an Integrated Emergency System (SIE) that allows real-time monitoring of capacities and availabilities in all jurisdictions. It contemplates the possibility of transfers (even air) of serious cases between one city and another. “We have a heat map that tells us where we can refer critically ill patients, ”they explained in the ministry. There they check the location of the therapy beds every hour. At this stage of the pandemic, the data is an obsession.
La Plata. Correspondent
AS
