Pandemic Investigating in Guatemala the opaque purchase of 16 million Sputnik from a Russian fund
Patients lying on the floor receiving oxygen or lying between two plastic chairs in the absence of beds. This is the panorama of the main hospital to treat patients infected with coronavirus in Guatemala City, which has been revealed through photographs published on social networks. The
outrage
citizen grew like wildfire seeing sick people did not even have a bed to be comfortable while receiving oxygen that binds them
to life. The collapse suffered by the Temporary Hospital of the Parque de la Industria is very similar to the saturation suffered by the rest of the public medical centers after the coronavirus has triggered, with
more than 4,000 positive cases on average in recent days.
After having exceeded the figure of 11,000 people who died since March last year, the Government has not found the formula to control the virus, beyond asking the population to be responsible and take care of themselves.
Vaccines arrive at the dropper
and, at the moment, in a country of 16 million people, only a little more than 468,000 have been vaccinated with the two doses and 2.5 million with the first. Vaccination is being possible thanks, above all, to donations from third countries, such as the US, which delivered three million doses of vaccines to Guatemala last July from the pharmaceutical company Moderna. Meanwhile, the Executive of
Alejandro Giammattei
still awaiting the arrival of the batch of 8 million doses of the Sputnik V vaccine agreed with a Russian fund worth 80 million dollars.
Every so often, Russian vaccines arrive and now 240,000 doses are awaited.
In principle, the Government of Guatemala had agreed to purchase 16 million doses of Sputnik V for 160 million dollars, although in the face of Russia's inability to fulfill its contract, it was renegotiated so that only the 8 million vaccines would arrive. they had been paid for, although they still have not been shipped in full.
The collapse in the public health system is such that even the authorities of the San Juan de Dios General Hospital, one of the main in the country, this week asked the relief forces to send
victims of accidents or other victims
for 48 hours.
diseases to other medical centers due
to the increase in coronavirus patients. Meanwhile, doctors at the Roosevelt Hospital, the largest in Guatemala, warned that at any time they can stop treating patients, so they asked to tighten containment measures.
Although, at first, the President, Alejandro Giammattei, opposed the implementation of new restrictions, this Friday he decreed a State of Public Calamity throughout the country for a period of 30 days and imposed a new curfew between 10 p.m. and 04.00 hours from this Sunday.
"The Delta variant is highly contagious and many governments have had to impose new restrictions on their populations as mitigation measures and Guatemala cannot be the exception," said the Chief Executive in a message to the nation in which he showed his "great concern "about the"
increase in serious cases in young people
. "
Insufficient beds
The president acknowledged that the health system "historically relegated continues to suffer pressure from the increase in daily cases" with a positivity rate of 35 percent in the tests carried out. Thus, he explained that currently, there are 2,511 beds available in the public hospital network to care for Covid patients, a figure far removed from the 3,000 beds that in his day he promised only for the Temporary Hospital of the Parque de la Industria in the capital. The five field hospitals with 1,250 beds that Giammattei promised to buy in Spain did not finish arriving either.
The director of this hospital, Dania Hernández, who has been singled out for the deplorable state in which the Covid patients were lying on the ground, has acknowledged that the offer that Giammattei made of 3,000 beds was a "mistake. of numbers". Thus, he explained that "the capacity of the fairgrounds does not provide for that number of beds and now we have 317 plus the 85 that are going to be added."
The image of sick people has impacted society in such a way that, a few hours after the photographs were released, the Hospital del Parque de la Industria, where 800 coronavirus patients have died so far this year, received multiple
donations from mats and beds
. However, Hernández has rejected them, given that the situation "has already been solved", despite acknowledging that the hospital is at "110 percent of its capacity." In addition, he clarified that patient care is not limited only to putting more beds, but to
increasing the medical and nursing staff
and announced the hiring of 75 more people next week. The director of the Hospital specified that the patients who were on the floor were in the observation area and not in the admission area, although she promised to "change the plastic chairs for a little more comfortable ones."
Meanwhile, Giammattei has tried to justify the situation that the country is going through with the runaway coronavirus: "we are facing a calamity for which definitely, no one anywhere in the world was prepared." For this reason, he considered "urgent" a State of Calamity that allows "to contain the spread of the virus and speed up the acquisition of services to attend the pandemic." However, it must be ratified next week by the Guatemalan Congress and, for now, not all members of the Government support this measure.
The vice president himself, Guillermo Castillo, issued a statement shortly after the announcement of the curfew in which he rejected the State of Calamity approved by the Council of Ministers, warning that the limitation of constitutional guarantees can be used "improperly to other purposes ". Castillo recalled that, since March 2020, States of Prevention, States of Siege and States of Calamity have been approved without this having meant an "improvement in the containment of the pandemic."
For the Vice President of Guatemala, who has distanced himself in recent months from Giammattei criticizing his decisions, the way to stop the pandemic "is not by restricting constitutional guarantees, but through the massive and serious
vaccination process of the
entire population", having It also takes into account that measures such as the curfew "the only thing they do is affect the already deteriorating economy."
Restrictions in a context of protests
However, the chief executive wants Congress to endorse his package of measures next Monday, which includes prohibiting or suspending all
kinds of public performances
and meetings or events, except for demonstrations, "when they take place. carried out with the due notification, complying with the necessary sanitary measures and guaranteeing freedom of movement to third parties ".
Precisely, these restrictions are imposed in a context of demonstrations and roadblocks in Guatemala after the decision of the attorney general, Consuelo Porras, to dismiss on July 23 the head of the Special Prosecutor Against Impunity, Juan Francisco Sandoval, who he had investigated numerous cases of corruption.
This Friday, indigenous authorities of the Central American country issued an
ultimatum for
Giammattei and Porras
to resign
before August 18.
If they do not resign, they announced that "measures will be taken" to continue demanding their resignation and asked the population to "be vigilant."
"Let the corrupt resign," they shouted, while accusing Giammattei of "not representing national unity, but the dispossession, exclusion and misery of the majority of the population of this country", while the attorney general " it represents only corruption, impunity and the manipulation of justice. "
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