Hospitals are saturated with emergencies, with 10% more patients than last summer

Hospital emergencies across Spain are saturated, something health professionals had anticipated before the summer, but as 10% more patients on average than in the same period last yearthe most complex weeks are concentrated between July 15th and August 15th.

In an interview with EFE, Pascual Piñera, first vice-president of the Spanish Society of Emergency Medicine (Semes), blamed the situation on the heatwave, which favors decompensation of chronic diseases in the elderly and COVID-19. Increase in cases of pneumonia. 19 cases, “not a lot of income, but got a lot of help in the emergency room”.

Another reason hospitals are overloaded with emergencies, especially in the summer, is the state of primary care, Pinera said. shortage of staff and resources This resulted in patients being sent to the emergency room, “a convenient 24-hour service”.

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, Urgent care for seniors over 85 is on the rise In summer, there is a ten-year upward trend.

Longer heat waves will increase hospital pressure

Marciano Sánchez Bayle, spokesperson for the Federation of Societies for the Defense of Public Health (Fadsp), agrees with Vice-President Semes: Hygiene stress worse than usual this summer Partly due to the heatwave “destabilizing people with chronic diseases” and partly due to an increase in coronavirus 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.

Sanchez Bell also mentioned hospital bed highly enclosed Across Spain, the Madrid community led the charge, with public hospitals seeing a drop of more than 19% between July and August, with a drop of almost 2,500 beds, according to the federation’s calculations.

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.

It was in Madrid that 31 doctors from the University Hospital of La Paz presented a study this week lodge a complaint with the duty judge Due to the “collapse” of emergency services.

According to the Trabajadores en Red union, the hospital has Dozens of patients entered At the same time, 435 beds were closed, “the excuse is that there are 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.

More patients sent to ER due to motorcycle accident

despite this, Emergencies are also full of trivial ailments

As well as summer-related ailments such as allergies, sunburn, dehydration, digestive problems, gastroenteritis or food poisoning.

Some of the assistance that has drawn attention due to the increase concerns injuries caused by driving scooters.

The first vice president of Semes said that as street scooters are being rented, their use has become more common, but accidents have also increased among users using this form of transport. no helmet or protective gear.

This has worried emergency services, who have been warning of the situation for months and are demanding that governments take action.