- Direct: last minute of the coronavirus
Confirmation of being positive or not for coronavirus infection marks the degree of confinement or isolation of workers in hospitals, residences and essential services . Hence, the tests have become the most demanded clinical product in certain sectors.
Despite the fact that the Government began yesterday the distribution of these devices among all the regions - the Valencian Community corresponds to 86,973 - the constant absence has generated an alternative market - or 'black' for many, since it is not officially regulated by Health - from clinics that offer to do the tests for bulky prices and without sufficient guarantees of reliability.
Many doctors and nurses have received messages from laboratories, directly on their mobile phones , in which they assure that they can have a contagion test with results in less than four days. These are " offers to take the Covid-19 test, prior confirmation of payment by transfer before taking the sample ", according to a doctor, who details that one of the offers "asked for 155 euros if the interested party I would move it for the taking, or 200 euros if the sample is collected by the clinic workers at the home that requests it ”.
The Ministry of Health is already investigating this type of practice in various clinics in Valencia and Alicante that have proliferated in the face of psychosis caused by the first two deaths in the healthcare environment. Both were auxiliary nurses from the Doctor Peset hospital in Valencia and the outpatient clinic in the town of Faura.
Among the clinics' test offers - which must be paid in advance through an account number sent by SMS or WhatsApp - there is a modality for doctors that is cheaper if they can obtain the sample with public health material. In this case, "the cost is 70 euros, because they explain how to collect the sample yourself and take the swab with its medium (material from the public system) to the place where they analyze it," says the same source.
Another of the health workers who have received messages to be tested in an unofficial way criticized the occurrence of this lucrative trade "while the State of Alarm remains in force and the obligation to cede all available resources to Health" and questioned that there is someone who It is "enriching because it has available resources that are lacking in the public, where the real battle is being fought and on the front line."
After the reproaches of some doctors, the laboratories defend themselves by ensuring that they have "made their tests available to the Health Service". However, this newspaper has confirmed with official sources of the Ministry that this statement is absolutely false because no donations of this type have been received.
In the messages from the heads of the laboratories they assure that they adjust the prices of the tests to the cost of the material, but specialist doctors describe that the prices have always been much lower and ranged between 30 and 50 euros . Hence, if the fees charged in the underground market move between 140 and 200 euros, the benefit is more than 100 euros for each test to the clinics.
It is striking that many of these firms do not have diagnostic tests as their main activity, but rather are plastic and restorative surgery clinics, trauma centers or even ophthalmology consultations .
In some private hospitals , the analyzes of the Covid-19 are also carried out, in a very controlled and limited way, but from these centers they clarify that when these tests are carried out it is always " by medical prescription and at risk or private individuals with obvious symptoms that may cause contagion in their homes ».
506,800 masks, 994,500 gloves, 216,860 personal protective equipment and 60,000 consell glasses
A new plane with medical supplies ordered by the Generalitat Valenciana arrived at Manises airport from China on Monday with 65 tons of equipment.
Another shipment that arrives successfully due to the management of the Commissioner of the Presidency of the Generalitat to assume the coordination of supplies before the state of alarm by the Covid-19, María José Mira. This is the fourth flight, which has stopped in Moscow before landing at the Valencian airport, and which is part of Operation Silk Road, launched by the Consell to combat the Covid-19 pandemic. Their cargo consisted of 506,800 masks, 994,500 gloves, 216,860 personal protective equipment (PPE) and 60,000 eye protection goggles.
The 65 tons of material from this flight add to the almost million masks, the 10,031 personal protective equipment (PPE) and the 10,000 eye protection goggles, which arrived in Zaragoza and Barcelona on Tuesday, March 31, and at 3,800,000 masks, 5,000 protective overalls and 200,000 gloves that also arrived at the airport of the Aragonese capital on April 25. To this material must be added that coming from numerous donations from companies and individuals that has been made available to the health authorities.
As on previous occasions, once customs control is passed, the cargo will be taken by truck to a logistics center of the Generalitat for its subsequent distribution among the different health departments and socio-health centers of the Valencian Community. More planes with more material will arrive in the coming days.
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Know more- Coronavirus
- Valencia
- Valencian Community
- Alicante
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