Carol Tancredi
@carolatancredi
Tuesday June 7, 10:00 pm and the downpour is getting worse. You have to get off the car anyway, the child’s respiratory failure worsens. This is an emergency.
“What does the patient have?”, asks the guard of the children’s pediatric hospital, Elías Toro, from Catia. To the answer, without hesitation, he replies: “Come in, check in at admission and don’t wait; enter the room. Children with respiratory conditions cannot wait”.
In the registration space there is no one. More than 20 minutes pass, and the cleaning staff listens to the incessant coughing of the infant. «Come in, and say that there is no one here to register you, go ahead. Breathing can’t wait.
Upon entering the emergency area, the general collapse: children and mothers wait, while the three doctors’ cubicles are occupied by doctors who talk to each other and chat, as if nothing was happening around them.
“Good evening, doctor! Excuse me, I’ve brought a child with respiratory failure”, listens to the doctor, who doesn’t even flinch, because the conversation he has via cell phone seems to be more important. As his fingers stop moving, he looks up. Very quietly, he stated: “My queen you have to wait.” To this he added: “I have a case that just came in”to which the mother replied, “Excuse me doctor, but the boy has a lot of cough”.
Ignoring it, he lowers his gaze once more, and in the same space his companion Galena, who does nothing or even turns around, continues writing. Immediately she breaks the silence in the empty office.
Immediately followingwards, the wait arrives, with this impatience and despair. Meanwhile, parents come out cursing the lack of attention: “I have 5 hours waiting” shouts a man who leaves the room, while a girl affected with gallbladder pain arrives. Separate tears cover her cheeks and a marked jaundice makes her face shine. “Lady, make your queue”they respond from admission: “You have to wait normal”.
Four hours and counting passed between the first contact with the specialists. Distraught, the mothers, because the children can’t take it anymore, return to the emergency room to try to be heard once more.
The doctors doing their thing, sitting behind the desk, candidly chatting.
Security personnel come to the room. “Young man, excuse me”expressed one of the mothers, to ask her “Could it be that I should wait for the child to have a respiratory arrest so that the doctors can act”.
The surprised man, because there were no children left except him with pulmonary difficulty, the infant with biliary pain, and another girl who had just arrived at the hospital, advanced. Without saying a word, he entered the emergency room, and immediately came out, in a low voice, behind his mask, he indicated: “Mom, go at once, enter cubicle two, and settle there, those doctors are not doing anything”.
In a polite manner, to approach the doctor, she realizes that in this recurrence it is necessary to wait once more for the clinician to finish talking with the admissions server, who is now asking for medicine prescriptions to be filled for something personal.
Doubt invades the citizen upon hearing a “Aha? And under what pathology are we going to request this from the pharmacy?”was the pediatrician’s comment, to which the admission server responded, in a mocking tone: “Put on, presumed case of Covid, or put on it, monkey pox.” When pronouncing the absurd, laughter is heard throughout the space, without ceasing.
Finally, it was past 2:00 in the morning, when the doctor told the mother “pass the child over here”. Indeed, now it is that it is verified that it is a pulmonary condition.
Without undermining and with a regal voice he addresses the woman: “This is an asthma crisis, did you bring medication and a mask?to which the surprised parent replied: «No doctor, I never imagined it was an asthmatic crisis, he does not suffer from that».
This time, the doctor referred: «Madam, you should get used to bringing everything, this is a public hospital, there is never anything here», and mocks the exhortation of President Nicolás Maduro. On her part, her mother, already indignant, indicated: “I’m sorry, excuse me, I repeat, I didn’t know what we were going to need”.
However, in an attempt to save the aggravating words, the doctor, seeing the conditions of the infant, and the discomfort of the mother, said: “Go to the infirmary so they can just put the steroid on you.”
Unmotivated, she walked along with her son, with the order, already denied. Arriving at the cubicle, a very friendly nurse asked: “Did you bring the mask and the medicines?”replied once more, «no».
The health worker went to the shelf, which, flooded with supplies, is going to burst. After the search the surprise invades. He returns to the inn with all the necessary implements and along with these, the guys, medicines and the claimed mask that had already been denied him.
At that moment he wondered: “How many children have been denied free access with the same excuse? This is a public hospital, there is never anything here”.
