The president of the Peruvian Society of Intensive Care Medicine, Jesus Valverde, warned this Monday that the beds of Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in the country they are already collapsed after the increase in patients with COVID-19.
In an interview with the program The Air Rotary of RPP, The doctor explained that the ICU is very dynamic and pointed out that until yesterday, Sunday, there were no beds in this unit in hospitals and private clinics in the capital.
“Nowadays the hospital beds, which were the hospital reserve, are already filling up. This means that the migration of the patient directly from his home to third-level hospitals is taking place frankly and vertically. At this point we can say that ICUs at the national level are already collapsing“Our growth is taking place in large areas outside the Intensive Care Unit,” he warned.
Jesus Valverde clarified that the ICU beds will not solve the problem of patients with COVID-19, So he proposed a second-level containment strategy based on high leakage systems installed in general hospitalization areas. “We currently have about 350 or 400 high-flow devices nationwide,” he added.
“We are proposing to the Ministry of Health, and three or four months ago, that these high-flow systems be purchased. High-flow systems are high-speed oxygen input systems that relatively and absolutely in many cases solves the respiratory problem in patients who are going to progress severely, ”he said.
Likewise, Jesus Valverde highlighted the tcontinuous work of intensive care physicians throughout 10 months of pandemic, Despite staff exhaustion. In addition, he insisted that ICU growth reached the limit because there are no longer any health professionals.
“The pandemic has stripped that deficit of intensivists it is great nationally, we are experiencing a global crisis of intensive care physicians, it is happening all over the world, it is happening in Europe in North America and Peru was no stranger to that. Latin America does not have the number of intensivists similar to first world countries, “he lamented.
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