Three out of every four cases registered in the Community of Madrid between May 10 and 17 were Madrid health professionals, according to the latest data from the Ministry. Of the total of 1,027 positives that appear in the historical series of those days (including both), 766 were from the Medicine, Nursing and Auxiliary staff, caretakers and other non-health workers, such as administrative staff. In that week, an average of 96 Sermas workers and 33 positive citizens per covid-19 were recorded in Madrid statistics each day. The total number of infected reached 10,782 on May 10, a week later they were 11,548.
Since the start of the pandemic, those who work in Madrid hospitals have repeatedly denounced the lack of personal protective equipment: gowns, gloves, screens, leggings, glasses and masks that never arrived in sufficient quantity or with sufficient quality. On March 18, when the virus started to break out, filing cabinets, garbage bags, and scrubbing gloves were the tricks of the toilets to protect themselves against an infection of which virulence was beginning to be known. Those days, Fernando Simón, the director of the Center for the Coordination of Health Alerts and Emergencies, repeated over and over that it was essential to “protect those who have to protect others”, that is, the health and non-health professionals who were First line.
That never happened at all and there has been a difference between hospitals. The tension to which all the centers were subjected was extreme, and although it was even more so in some small ones, with less room for maneuver, such as the Severo Ochoa in Leganés or the Prince of Asturias in Alcalá; the high rate of infections has also been extended to the largest, such as Ramón and Cajal. Now, two months later, the numbers of infected in those centers reflect this. “It is very indicative of the anger of the professionals and of what has happened all this time, a very close contact with the virus with the high viral load that it supposes in hospitals and with fake masks and Warner gowns,” recalls Julián Ordoñez, from UGT.
| PROFESSIONAL | POSITIVE PCR |
|---|---|
| Doctors | 3,439 |
| Nurses | 3,718 |
| Technicians / in auxiliary nursing care (TCAE) | 2013 |
| Other toilets (pharmacy, laboratory, lightning, etc.) | 540 |
| Wardens | 633 |
| Other non-sanitary (administrative, maintenance, etc.) | 1,205 |
| Health total | 9,710 |
| Total non-sanitary | 1,838 |
| TOTAL | 11,548 |
Table with data from the Community of Madrid of positive cases for Covid-19 between May 10 and 17.
In Ramón y Cajal, 24% have been infected; in Severo Ochoa, on April 20 the virus had reached 27% of the workforce; in Alcalá, at the beginning of May and according to data from the Mats union, there were 644 infected of the 2,458 workers they have. “Now it reaches 37.6%”, says Rubén Herrera, the center’s emergency nurse and a member of Mats, who filed one of the many complaints that unions and health associations have filed before the Labor inspection against the Community of Madrid since March for the lack of EPIS.
“There is no reasonable explanation for the high infection rate with significant differences between different centers if it were not for the lack of appropriate equipment,” says Julián Ezquerra, of the Association of Doctors and Graduates of Madrid: “When you work equally in everywhere, there are no differences when it comes to treating the patient or undertaking techniques, the only factor that differentiates them is the protective equipment ”. From the Workers’ Commissions, they see these results as “worrisome”: “These results are very strange and very worrisome, because if so, the focus of contagion among professionals is” very active “, it may be the origin of a new expansion and also continues putting in check the templates of the centers of the Madrid Health Service “.
Now, the bulk of the covid-19 will be seen in primary care, which has been asking for staff reinforcement and improvements for weeks in some centers that still do not meet the necessary requirements to implement the protocol for early detection and case follow-up, which has to take charge, along with Public Health. Something on which progress in de-escalation depends and on which the Community is not yet ready.
Ordóñez, from UGT, says that until now there has been a “relative safeguard because a lot of telephone attention has been maintained, but now when the health centers are opened, which are going to have more face-to-face activity, we will probably have a peak.” Also thinks Ezquerra, from Amyts, who predicts that if the situation repeats, “the figure will reach the percentages that have occurred in hospitals.” Ordóñez has a certain “hope” that he has “learned in all this time, in the last two months, and that the same mistakes are not made”: among them, the lack of protection of professionals.
Information about the coronavirus:
– Here you can follow the last hour on the evolution of the coronavirus.
– The coronavirus map: this is how cases grow day by day and country by country
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