The Salamanca Hospital Emergency Service broke its all-time record for October this Monday. 505 patients received treatment.
It’s a number that’s “completely unusual for this time of year,” and one that’s usually one of the calmest for emergency doctors, but they note that what’s concerning is that this isn’t a specific case; Reaction to a trend, noticed since August Make you “scared” about what will happen in the winter.
Emergency services chief Jorge García Criado recalled his predecessor, the late Rafael Borrás: “Rafa knew a lot about this; And getting the situation under control, September is followed by one of the quietest times of the year in history, and milder pathologies. The problem is we’ve been moving at a brutal pace since August. This Monday there were 505 patients, but last Monday there were 490 patients,” he detailed.
More than half a thousand patients are treated in emergency rooms, but they don’t follow a specific pattern. “It’s not that there’s a lot of COVID-19, it’s not that there’s a lot of pneumonia… There’s nothing special to justify these numbers, but there’s more to it», explains García Criado.
Armed with this data, emergency experts worry about what will happen when the typical respiratory infections of winter really begin. «This is a matter of great concern to us. When the cold weather arrives and respiratory illness really sets in, if these numbers are exceeded…». On the other hand, the top emergency room doctor also assessed the possibility that inappropriately high temperatures in October could cause some patients to decompensate.
they are not emergencies
An analysis by hospital management of the number of patients admitted this week led to several clear conclusions.
First, the vast majority of consultations are not for emergencies or overly serious conditions. On a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 represents a serious life risk and 5 represents a mediocre pathology, the average score among patients treated in Monday’s records was between 3 and 4. «The observation area is where the disease is most severe and the pressure is not great.», they explained in Urgencia.
Hospital management confirmed that the proportion of cases eventually admitted was not higher than on other days, but the opposite. The change range is about 11%. “This time last year, a second pediatric inpatient floor had to be opened due to a large number of bronchiolitis cases, but this floor has not yet been necessary this year. There is also less pressure on the internal medicine department than in other years,” they explained.
Why do more than half a thousand patients come to the emergency room in one day? Sources consulted speculated there were “multiple factors” at play. “This may have happened Some funnels for elementary school This will delay appointments by a few days, but will also impact waiting lists Delay in external consultations with experts,” they said. The certainty they do manage internally is that “almost everything they deal with is not urgent.”