Neighbors and tourists expressed their concern regarding the medical care provided at the Villa El Chocón hospital, especially during the busiest months. The care center is designed for a population of 3,000 inhabitants, although in the summer the number of people who frequent it and spend the night in the town grows exponentially.
Consulted in this regard, the head of Sanitary Zone V, Jorge Daniel Conti Tagnali, said that the hospital provides basic care with four general practitioners on staff. In turn, it provides dental care, in the area of Mental Health and Nursing. Notwithstanding this, he explained that for specialties, residents have to be treated at the area’s main hospital, located in Cutral Co, with a scheduled shift. For more complex situations, there is the Castro Rendón.
The distance between the town and the hospitals of Cutral Co and Neuquén is more or less the same: it borders 90 kilometers.
In these cases, the care logic is as follows: patients are cared for by a general practitioner, a scheduled shift is generated and the transfer is coordinated, with a specific date and time, when they do not have their own means of mobility. “In the case of a specialty, it is derived,” said Conti Tagnali, in statements to Channel 7.
Of course it is not necessary to manage a shift if it is an emergency. Directly, the Health personnel carry out the transfer in an ambulance to the main hospital to do everything that is necessary according to the case. In addition, since the hospital has inpatient beds, it may be that patients are first admitted to compensate them and then they are referred to a more complex center. “This is how the health system works,” said Conti Tagnali.
What regarding the guards?
Due to the complexity of the hospital, there are no active guards every day, but only on weekends. Even when the town increases its number of inhabitants during the summer months. Therefore, the hospital is managed with passive shifts of 12 hours each, from Monday to Friday.
In an emergency, patients are referred.