The Antioquia regional office of the Colombian Society of Pediatrics expressed, through a statement, its concern regarding the medical care of the child population in Medellín and Antioquia. Therefore, he called the competent authorities so that join efforts and analyze this situation with the academic, trade union and economic sector of the citygetting ready to add to this process.
The union highlighted that boys and girls have been affected by factors such as “little availability of pediatric services, oversaturation of emergency services, congestion of pediatric hospitalizationlow opportunity in ambulatory care, among others”.
On this, they noted that There has not been a proportional relationship between the increase in demand and the supply of services. “On the contrary, we have witnessed closures or cuts in services with a net effect in a decrease in the number of beds in relation to the child population,” they point out in the statement.
Among the proposals made both to the competent authorities and to the providing institutions and medical schools, the realization of a diagnosis of the number of beds enabled for the pediatric population in hospitalization in the department, to verify that it does respond to the required density. Similarly, in terms of training, “start as a priority a retraining plan aimed at general practitioners in pediatric triage and primary care for children”.
Another of the important proposals made in the letter, signed by the board of directors – led by the association’s president, José Alberto Betancur – consists of execute actions to reduce the gap in care for healthy children that exists in Colombian society, so they also call on health providers to evaluate the homogenization of rates for this population, “with a differential sense according to the complexity that care for our children brings.”
“Access to follow-up pediatrics is very limited and untimely, this particularly notable in the subsidized or uninsured population. Through anticipatory and prevention guidelines, it is possible to reduce the global burden of pediatric disease and emergency consultations”, they emphasize in the letter.
Just two weeks ago, on June 15, the Observatory of the Fundamental Right to Health of the Personería de Medellín issued an alert because the city’s pediatric network was overwhelmed: occupancy was at 120%, a fact that was verified by the Public Ministry, which highlighted that the main pathology of consultation of the child population has been due to Acute Respiratory Infection (ARI).
