Asuncion, IP Agency.- “The Ministry of Health has never seen such growth before. There has always been a deficit in the number of beds but also in the number of staff,” said the director of Intensive Care at the Ministry of Health, Leticia Pintos, on Monday. The health system increased from 308 to 509 beds this year.
In order to confront the new coronavirus, the Ministry of Public Health and Social Welfare planned several actions, including increasing the number of beds in the Intensive Care Unit, which increased by 201 beds during the pandemic; likewise, more wide-range equipment and medical supplies were acquired and received as donations.
The director of Intensive Care at the Ministry of Health explained that at the beginning of the year there were 308 beds in the ICUs, and now there are 509 beds. To this end, small services were strengthened, increasing them. They were also opened in cities where there was no therapy before.
“There was an increase of 201 more beds, initially, and the small services in the interior of the country were expanded and strengthened, since there were only 2 or 3 beds and they were expanded to 8, which is the number of patients that a therapist can care for,” he said.
Speaking to Radio Nacional del Paraguay, he indicated that of the 509 ICU beds nationwide, for adults, pediatrics and neonates, there is an occupancy of 77%, most of them due to respiratory conditions, whether COVID-19 positive or not.
“It is a huge task to increase the number of beds because it depends on white-collar staff. In some hospitals, building renovations were carried out to adapt all the therapy services,” he said.
He stressed that the main work was the unification and integration with the Social Security Institute (IPS) both in Human Resources and in building capacity and equipment.
“There has never been such growth in the Ministry of Health. There has always been a deficit in the number of beds but also in the number of staff. Currently, the staff is being reorganized, so that there are one or two intensive care specialists and the rest are covered by professionals from related specialties such as pulmonologists, residents of internal medicine who also have training, who rotate through the service during their residencies,” he said.
Currently, the health portfolio is focused on strengthening the emblematic hospitals in the central area such as Barrio Obrero, which does not have an ICU but a section of the building was adapted for a resuscitation room, with respirators, monitors, and personnel trained to handle seriously ill patients, providing care while they are transferred or are being improved and moved to a regular ward. “This is being done in several hospitals,” he said.
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2024-08-09 02:44:33
