2023-12-26 05:56:04
With the high incidence of respiratory diseases in Puerto Rico, several of the strategies used in the COVID-19 pandemic continue to be used for case detection.
By: Maria Camila Sanchez
December 26, 2023
As a result of the pandemic, the Health Department of Puerto Rico has been experiencing an important evolution in everything related to the tracking, detection and treatment of infectious diseases that occur on the island.
In fact, Dr. Carlos Mellado, secretary of the Health Departmentrevealed exclusively for the Revista Medicina y Salud Pública, that the island now has more economic resources, an updated tracking system with which the current influenza epidemic is monitored.
“We have been working with hepatitis C and various programs that come as a result of the experience of having had, for example, places to do mass testing, car services, places where we did the test and provided you with the treatment. if you tested positive.”
Given the success of these strategies, these initiatives still continue, not only with COVID cases, but with high incidence conditions in Puerto Ricosuch as hepatitis and some cancers, for which preventive medicine is implemented.
“In fact, now we have a program called ‘Destino Salud’, where we go to the municipalities with specialists, and part of the purpose of all this is to be able to provide access to all the patients who perhaps did not have it and who still do not have it. because of the geographical challenge they have.”
And the pandemic changed many of the things we were used to, one of the advantages that this brought was telemedicine, which to this day continues to expand access to health services in places that are difficult to access.
Increase in the incidence of respiratory diseases
It is important to highlight that, although months have passed since the WHO decreed that the COVID-19 It was no longer considered a public health emergency, high waves of contagion are still being reported. And this is added to the list of respiratory diseases that occur on the island, such as influenza, respiratory syncytial virus.
“All of these conditions will prevail and we will continue to have treatment available and continue educational campaigns.”
Given this situation, he pointed out that the structure of the Health Department had to change part of its structure to correctly serve the population, adding resources for the detection of these diseases in laboratories, technology, as well as health promotion and prevention campaigns.
“Also everything that is sexually transmitted diseases, COVID, influenza, hepatitis, dengue, Chikungunya, which are also diseases that are going to come and we have them in our surveillance system and we ensure that the laboratory system reports those results so that we can educate citizens and tackle the problem early.”
Strategies to increase the number of specialists on the island
On multiple occasions, doctors, regardless of their specialty, have reported that in Puerto Rico There are not enough specialists to serve the community. Therefore, since the Health Department Strategies are being prepared that allow health professionals in training to choose to stay on the island, before deciding to emigrate to the United States or another country.
“We want to increase residences, we want to have more cardiologists, gynecologists, emergency internists, family doctors, and we want to improve the hospitals of the Health Departmentwhich is already being done and they are already finishing the phase, we want to increase the rate in the hospitals, we want more hospitals interested in opening residences, all that is what we want,” he expressed.
Even so, he noted that they will be focused on increasing the “department of specialists, reevaluating the salary that nurses have. We know there is still a lot more to go in those areas, working with all suppliers. We know that we have to improve it and we have to continue supervising the insurers.”
And as part of that expansion plan, he expressed that the hospitals have received funds for their expansion.
“The Government gave more than $543 million dollars to hospitals. Now, CDBG-DR/MIT has $10 million dollars for each hospital that requests it for infrastructure. There is other money to improve the electrical grid and a number of opportunities that have arisen from situations that are bad and that one would not want and we would not want to have happened to have this, but certainly the health system is being restructured in Puerto Rico”.
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