Temporary. The number of visits to the emergency room drops and doctors fear a "delay in diagnoses"
"I am afraid. In recent days, there has been a very important increase in Covid patients who were arriving at the ER. My fear is that, with the storm, they will not be able to go to the hospital: that they will get worse at home and when they go on Monday or Tuesday
are in a much more serious situation
or that some, directly, do not arrive ".
The speaker is Ricardo Furió, spokesman for the Satse nursing union.
Expectant and with a slight dose of concern, he watched yesterday afternoon from his window how the snow fell in the capital.
An incessant dance of flakes that settled on a white mantle that exceeded
30 centimeters
in some areas.
"On the street where I live there is only snow. Ambulances cannot enter. If neither I can go out, nor can they come to pick me up, there is little that can be done ...
Pray that you don't get sick,
" says Furió, who assumes that this The situation "has overwhelmed" us all: "They have been saying for a week that it was going to snow a lot, but certainly no one expected the amount of snow that was going to accumulate and the chaos that it was going to cause."
With the roads cut off and the commuter lines and buses out of service, the only ways that Madrid residents have to get to medical centers this weekend is on
foot or by Metro
.
"Accessing some, such as Getafe, is very complicated. The suburban does not arrive there, as in Marañón or La Paz", details the spokesperson for Satse.
Pilgrimage below zero
A problem for convalescents also shared by many health workers who lived real "odyssey" in order to access their job.
Some did it
with touring skis
, such as Dr. Sergio Serrano, from the Ramón y Cajal Hospital, who did not want to lose his guard and tried to avoid setbacks due to possible cuts in the Metro.
He left his house at 7:00 a.m.
Twelve kilometers separated him from his destination, which he ended up arriving at at 10:00.
"I've been slow, but the weather was horrible and I'm not very trained either," he tells this newspaper from the hospital itself.
And he takes the opportunity to assess the situation: "There is an absolute blockage of discharges and admissions. You cannot get to the hospital, it is something unprecedented and worrisome. As disturbing is that many people who require, as is usual, to go to a hospital are not. They come with a dropper ... And
the delay in diagnosis is always bad
in any pathology. "
The case of Dr. Serrano contrasts with that of many other colleagues who had no choice but to stay home due
to the impossibility of taking his car.
This caused many professionals to have to double and even triple shifts, working more than 24 hours uninterrupted.
As it happened at the Infanta Cristina Hospital, in Parla.
"Those who were on duty yesterday [for Friday] have not been able to leave and have also stayed on duty today,
48 hours in a row
. They hope that reinforcement can arrive tomorrow, but since the roads are closed ...
The medical personnel are very tired,
"a doctor who works in the center tells EL MUNDO.
A similar situation was experienced in Gómez Ulla.
And at the Gregorio Marañón.
And in many other centers consulted by this newspaper, which ended up
enabling telephones
to answer questions or guide those who could not travel.
That they were not few.
As the snowfall increased, they say from the Gregorio Marañón,
the influx of patients to the emergency room decreased
.
"What is treated with the same activity are more vital issues, such as heart attacks or strokes, which arrive without any problems," they detail in this hospital.
“The accesses are not in the best circumstances, but there are workers who leave a road so that ambulances can pass.
The arrival of patients that we consider serious
is occurring normally
", they finished off from the Marañón.
As the day progressed, work intensified to
condition the accesses to the hospitals
in the region.
This was the main concern since inside "everything worked normally".
For this reason, groups of people began to be created by Telegram who, in a display of altruism, wanted to contribute their grain of sand.
Some, joining in to remove snow.
In others, such as SOS4x4 Madrid, drivers with this type of vehicle offered to transport people who urgently needed to go to a hospital.
Vaccination, affected
"This weekend they were going to start vaccinating health professionals. In the seven Primary Care centers in Madrid where they were going to start it has been suspended until Monday. In some hospitals they did take the opportunity to start vaccinating their health workers; others They said directly that
until Monday they will not start either
, "they reel from the Nursing union.
As this newspaper has learned, at least seven hospitals began to puncture the Pzifer vaccine to their health workers: the Gregorio Marañón Hospital, the Clinic, La Princesa, the Jiménez Díaz Foundation, the Fuenlabrada Hospital, the Infanta Leonor and the Sureste Hospital .
On the contrary, others such as the Severo Ochoa University Hospital in Leganés, despite receiving the vaccines, chose to postpone the injection of them to
prioritize "healthcare for patients
and users."
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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