With no vaccines or basic drugs to fight COVID-19, Paraguay’s top public hospitals collapsed on Wednesday and were left unable to receive patients in intensive care units.
In a statement, the Ministry of Health reported that all surgeries in public hospitals across the country to allocate resources to the fight against the pandemic have been suspended indefinitely.
Although the new coronavirus has so far claimed the lives of 3,218 people, a much lower figure than its neighbors in the region, Paraguay has run out of tickets and basic medicines.
“We don’t have X-rays, nasogastric tubes, no basic medicines … We don’t shut up anymore. We say enough to the government,” said pulmonologist Carles Morínigo, head of respiratory contingency at the National Institute of Respiratory Diseases and the Atmosphere (Ineram), the best equipped in Asunción.
Morínigo and about twenty doctors and nurses demonstrated in front of the hospital blocking the street intermittently. The medical staff was joined by relatives of patients admitted to intensive care who shouted “We want inputs” and “Enough of injustice.”
Morínigo admitted that the medicines are not available in the local market and that in addition to the lack of tickets, the population “lives in a relaxed situation, playing football and volleyball with friends, without social distancing or respecting health protocol.” .
The director of Inamam, Felipe González, told radio stations in Asunción that he made his position available to the Ministry of Health “because there are no medicines and infected people continue to arrive at the hospital.” He added that he has not yet received a response from the ministry.
Gladys Martínez, who has her mother in intensive care at Ineram, told AP by phone that “I went to pharmacies for atracuri and medazolam (a muscle relaxant and a sedative) for 24 hours of treatment but the budget is five million guaranís (about $ 850). This is a disaster. “
Maria Cristina González, who has been accompanying her husband to the same medical center since January 14, explained that “among other family and friends I gathered about 60 million guaranís ($ 9,000) to buy the drugs.”
Meanwhile, President Mario Abdo Benítez posted on his Facebook account a video in which he claimed that the country has had good results in the containment and treatment of COVID-19.
At a public event in the city of Caacupé, 55 kilometers east of Asunción, the president said that “if I get infected I will enter the Inamam because there are the best doctors.”
Two weeks ago the Russian Investment Fund delivered to Paraguay 4,000 doses of one million purchased of the Sputnik V vaccine. According to Health Minister Julio Mazzoleni, the rest of the vaccines will arrive in the coming weeks according to the availability of Russian laboratory.
In parallel, Paraguay expects the arrival of three million vaccines through the COVAX system, created by the United Nations and various international organizations to ensure equitable immunization for COVID-19.
Paraguay, with a population of 7.6 million, has so far recorded 161,530 cases of the new coronavirus.