- Covid-19.Coronavirus in Spain today, live breaking news
When Chloe entered the Gregorio Marañón pediatric Intensive Care Unit (ICU) on December 9, far from monopolizing the talks worldwide, the word coronavirus had not even been spoken in Spain yet. Three and a half months after that admission, this almost two-year-old girl has returned to her house in the municipality of Pinto completely healthy and with a new heart beating in her tiny chest in the middle of a pandemic of planetary dimensions.
His has been one of the 65 organ transplants that have been performed in the hospitals of the Community of Madrid since the start of the expansion of Covid-19, which in the region alone has already claimed more than 13,000 lives among the deceased. who had tested positive and people who died with symptoms consistent with the disease. Although all healthcare centers, both public and private, have devoted themselves completely to emergency care, it has not exclusively occupied the activity of professionals from the Madrid Health Service.
According to data from the Ministry of Health to which EL MUNDO has had access, between March 1 and April 15 there have been 4,469 deliveries and 4,408 operations considered urgent have been carried out , such as those for cancer patients, heart ailments and hip breaks, while the rest have been postponed. In addition, 906 strokes and 574 heart attacks have been attended, some of which have also required surgical intervention.
Through the lenses of the ICU of Gregorio Marañón, from where he had hardly moved since December, Chloe's mother has witnessed how the evolution of the coronavirus practically changed the organization of the hospital overnight: there were movements of Professionals to reinforce the floors of the center reserved for the infected, there was a decrease in the number of patients due to the suspension of scheduled surgeries and the masks became essential in this pediatric unit, also for families, even if they did not go out.
Heart transplant
Aside from the transplant itself, did you fear for the Covid-19? "Much. We have been very afraid. When the heart came they did the test ... if it had not been possible ». The result was negative, as was the one performed on the organ donor, who arrived from Barcelona with a transfer security protocol specially designed for these health alert circumstances.
So, after a month on the waiting list for myocarditis diagnosed just before the outbreak of the pandemic and having been in a very serious ICU condition, 22-month-old Chloe had her second life. Four weeks later, pulling kisses with her hand from a mouth protected by a children's mask, the little girl returned home with her parents and her older sister to the excited applause of the Gregorio Marañón restrooms.
The number of transplants has suffered due to the coronavirus crisis, although, as they point out in Health, Madrid "continues to be among the regions with the highest number despite the delicate situation". In the last month and a half, priority has been given to those of "urgency 0", which are those that, "if they are not carried out, carry a high risk of death", and "preferred", in which "without being life-threatening due to survival is reasonable to move on.
"The healthcare pressure of our hospitals has exploded during these weeks due to the evolution of the Covid-19. However, as the President of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso has recalled on many occasions, children have continued to be born in the centers and patients affected by strokes and heart attacks have been treated, "said a spokesman for the regional government.
At the San Carlos Clinic, for example, that during the peak of the pandemic it has come to have 70% of the area reserved for coronavirus patients, between 20% and 25% of the activity carried out these days has been dedicated to other pathologies and also delivery assistance. For these other types of users, clean areas have been kept in isolated plants and, according to the managing director, José Soto, there have been no infections from people who were healthy before admission, although he acknowledges that "total security does not exist".
"Hospitals are always areas of higher health risk than the street or the home, because there is always a rate of hospital infection of 15% as a standard throughout the world: one in seven patients has a complicated stay in the hospital for being in the hospital and not for the process. Now the coronavirus is the same. The virus is there and you have to eliminate it, we constantly disinfect it, but it can reappear again, it's like any bacteria, "explains this expert.
Among the reorganization measures of the protocols implemented in the Community of Madrid as a reason for Covid-19, four reference centers for risk births have been established : the Gregorio Marañón, La Paz, on October 12 and the Puerta de Hierro , in the municipality of Majadahonda. In these cases, pregnant women are recommended to go directly to the one closest to their home to "speed up health care and avoid exposure to the virus and subsequent transfers."
Precisely in these hospitals, almost half of the deliveries registered in the region during the pandemic have occurred . A significant number of births have also been registered in these circumstances: King Juan Carlos (Móstoles), Infanta Sofía (San Sebastián de los Reyes), Prince of Asturias (Alcalá de Henares), Getafe, Fuenlabrada and Infanta Leonor, in the Vallecas district.
Protective face masks
At the Ramón y Cajal Coronary Unit yesterday morning, the health care providers cared for patients with heart problems, also wearing protective masks and gloves, despite being one of the areas that have remained unaffected by the coronavirus. In this hospital 68 of the 906 strokes that have occurred in Madrid since March 1 , 54 of the 574 heart attacks and 242 of the 4,408 operations performed have been treated .
In order to combine normal activity with the Covid-19, the region's hospitals have had to improvise new entrance areas, installing tents outside or enabling new spaces inside the buildings themselves, as has been the case of the Clinic: Here the number of admission beds has been increased from 815 to 1,180 and ICU beds from 40 to 100 using the waiting rooms for outpatient consultations.
For a week now, in this center, as in others , the withdrawal has begun, but with "all caution" before the possibility of a rebound, according to the managing director, because at the moment it is unknown "if it is a seasonal virus, if it will replace the flu, if it will subside ... ». Now, little by little, an attempt will be made to resume the non-urgent activity that has been postponed and which alone in this hospital represents 4,000 pending operations. In late February, when the first confirmed coronavirus death occurred in Madrid, there were 78,171 people on the waiting list for surgery, 453,117 awaiting an outpatient consultation and 152,590 in need of a diagnostic test.
Despite the challenge posed by attention to the "invisible enemy", the Ministry of Health assures that everything urgent has been attended to , such as Chloe's transplant. Before finishing the phone conversation with the girl's mother, she makes a request: « I ask you to put in your article our immense thanks to the families who donate. Don't forget, please. It is very important that they continue to do so. ” Because although in just two months the coronavirus has colonized our lives, it is clear that much more health care is needed beyond the coronavirus.
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