Hospitals are saturated with acute care, with 10% more patients than last summer _ NIUS

Begogna Fernandez – EFEmadrid August 24, 2023 7:59 am

Albacete hospital emergency.European Press

Hospital emergencies across Spain are saturated, something health workers had anticipated before the summer, but as The number of patients increased by an average of 10% compared with the same period last year, The most complex weeks are concentrated between July 15th and August 15th.

Pascual Pinera, first vice-president of the Spanish Society of Emergency Medicine (SEMES), in an interview with EFE, blamed the situation on the decompensation of chronic diseases in the elderly as a result of the heat wave, as well as the increase in cases of covid-19, ” Not a lot of income, but a lot of assistance in the emergency room.”

Pinera said another reason hospitals are overloaded with emergencies, especially in the summer, is the situation in primary care, where staffing and resource shortages lead patients to go to emergency rooms, “with easy access and 24-hour access.” Hour”.

Pinera, director of the emergency department of the Reina Sofia University Hospital in Murcia, explained that the patients who were finally admitted were all “elderly people” aged 75 and over, who suffered from chronic diseases and multiple diseases, and were most affected by the heat wave.

In fact, according to this expert, Emergency assistance for seniors over 85 in summer, upward trend over the past ten years.

Heatwave puts pressure on hospitals

Marciano Sánchez Bayle, spokesman for the Federation of Associations Defending Public Health (FADSP), agreed with the SEMES vice-president that health stress due to heat waves was worse this summer than in the previous year, “undermining chronic disease stability”, such as the increase in new crown cases.

A spokesman for FADSP warned that “the heat wave is going to get longer and longer”, which will lead to more stress on hospital care during the summer.

Sánchez Baier also mentioned the high level of closure of hospital beds across Spain, with the Autonomous Region of Madrid leading the way according to this federation’s calculationsPublic hospital beds fell by more than 19 per cent, or nearly 2,500, between July and August.

The spokesman said the situation in Madrid “doesn’t correspond to reality” for a number of reasons, “mainly that fewer people are leaving the Community than they were a few years ago and there is less time to go on holiday.”

In short, according to the public health association’s platform, predictions of bed closures this summer have been “exceeded” beyond 2022, and hospital emergency rooms have reached saturation.

Just in Madrid, 31 doctors at La Paz University Hospital filed a complaint with the duty judge this week about the “collapse” of emergency services.

According to the Red Workers Union, dozens of patients were about to be admitted to the hospital, while 435 beds were closed, “on the pretext of fewer patients in summer.” This month, the union also blamed La Paz’s pathological anatomy laboratory for being overwhelmed by 11,600 biopsies awaiting analysis, many of them to diagnose certain types of cancer.

Scooter accidents on the rise

However, emergencies are also rife with banal and summer-related ailments such as allergies, sunburn, dehydration, digestive disturbances, gastroenteritis or food poisoning.

some eye-catching assists Added is the damage done by driving a scooter.

The first vice president of SEMES said that with the rental of street scooters, their use has become more common, but the accidents of users using this kind of transportation without helmets or protection measures have also increased, which makes the Emergency services are concerned. It took several months to warn of the situation and ask the relevant authorities to take action.