No 931 Monday 8th - Sunday 14th August 2022
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Keeping people safe and informed for over 18 years - The Costa Blanca’s oldest ‘FREE’ English language newspaper
H E A LT H C A R E I N C R I S I S
t has been an ongoing crisis for some months, but despite the introduction of the so-called “Shock Plan” to deal with the situation, and the complete revamp of the emergency room, the care being given at Torrevieja hospital has gone from being extremely bad to catastrophic, which the unions describing as “unsustainable”.
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Despite the supposed improvements, in recent weeks, other ER doctors have resigned and the rapid consultation and traumatology unit doesn´t operate every day. To put the effects into real terms for patients, on Monday the hospital was dealing with 34 patients occupying observation beds, all examination boxes were full, and there was a stream of patients on stretchers in the corridors, some of whom had been waiting a staggering 80 hours for admission. In addition, another 60 patients remained in the waiting room to be seen, more than 15 hours later, according to union data. By Tuesday, the situation was not much better, with 31 patients in the observation room, some with the same hours of waiting for admission. And in the boxes there were more than 12 patients with up to 20 without admission and 82 patients in the waiting room, with waits of up to 21 hours. The unions representing workers describe the situation as "unsustainable", as they barely had four or five doctors to cover the emergency room, many fewer than when Ribera Salud ran the service, wwith up to 27 doctors covering the Emergency Department. In order to alleviate the pressure on the hospital, the health department are asking those in need of medical attention to attend their local clinics rather than the hospital, in the first instance. To some extent, that plan is working. In July, the Points of Continuous Attention (PAC) dealt with 78% of the emergencies, a substantial increase in medical attention in the clinics, with the assistance of 7,500 more patients than those to which they attended during the same period of 2019, just before the pandemic, and about 9,000 more patients than last year. These clinics are currently attending to an average of 830 patients per day, with an average waiting time less than 30 minutes.
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