Via BBC News Brasil: 'Patients are intubated in the emergency room and die right there': the collapse of health in Porto Alegre, where a hospital rents a container to accommodate the dead. Excerpt from the Google translation:
The Porto Alegre region has about 1.5 million inhabitants - 4.4 million, considering the municipalities in the metropolitan region. In June last year, the city even registered 45 daily admissions for covid-19, which made it one of the Brazilian capitals with the lowest incidence of infection and deaths from the disease.
Months later, the situation is dire. There are 509 patients admitted to the ICU, an increase of 43% in the last week alone. For the risk manager of Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre, whose bed occupancy rate is 110%, the easing of restrictions has a direct impact on the current scenario.
"In the last few weeks, there has been a great mobility of people and a relaxation of measures of social distance, largely because of exhaustion, the need for subsistence and the false sense of protection that vaccination causes", says Ricardo Kuchenbecker. "This comes at a price."
Overcrowding, for example. According to the bed monitoring panel of the Porto Alegre city hall, nine of the 18 institutions that serve patients with covid-19 are full or operating over capacity.
"It's a nightmare. Our patients already arrive in terrible conditions. While waiting for ICU beds, they are intubated in the emergency room and sometimes end up dying right there," says Caroline Cavalheiro de Sousa, a nursing technician at the ICU of the São Lucas Hospital of PUCRS, on the east side of the capital.
"The hospital has been struggling to open new beds, but it never seems to be enough."
The increase in hospital vacancies is one of the main measures adopted by the gaucho government. Compared to April 2020, the current number of beds in intensive care units is 65% higher. The total number of hospitalized patients, however, increased 183% in the period. In practice, a significant portion of patients are condemned to receive care with some degree of improvisation, while remaining on the waiting list for a bed.
This Wednesday morning, the state government sent a letter to public and private hospitals determining that at least 50% of clinical beds should be used to treat patients with the disease. With the measure, the government expects the number of beds to reach 11,000. Yesterday, it was 6,456.
