Hospitals in the Algarve are closer to returning to Phase 1 of the Covid-19 Contingency Plan, the lowest of four, than to moving up to Phase 3, which would force the remaining care activity to be conditional, thanks to the decreasing number of patients. hospitalizations and patients in intensive care at the Centro Hospitalar Universitário do Algarve (CHUA), assured the Sul Informação Ana Varges Gomes.
According to the president of the Board of Directors (CA) of CHUA, the current situation “does not compare, neither close nor far, with what we were experiencing a year ago”.
«Right now, we are in Phase 2 and the perspective is not to go up to phase 3, it is to go down. We have had fewer hospitalized patients. (…) We are very close to 50% occupancy. At the moment, we are very calm," he said.
“The situation is much better. The big difference is the incidence, which is higher. In other words, there are many more cases, many more positive people, but there are much fewer hospitalizations, either intensively or in the ward. It doesn't even compare," he added.
«Last year, at this time, we were a few days away from opening the Portimão Arena infirmary, where we had 273 hospitalized patients. [opened on the 10th of January]. I currently have 40-something Covid-19 patients here in Faro and 12 in Portimão, in an infirmary. In Intensive Care, I have 10 in Faro and two in Portimão. And it has always been going down, the trend is down», revealed Ana Varges Gomes, referring to figures from yesterday, January 5th.
In total, CHUA has, in this Phase 2, «80 beds for Covid-19 in Faro and 25 in Portimão».
A year ago, more than an escalation of new cases, there was a substantial increase in deaths and hospitalizations, which led the Government to enact more restrictive measures to combat the pandemic and forced an almost total concentration of health services in combating the pandemic. .
At the beginning of 2022, the situation is quite different and it was «the vaccination that made all the difference».
"Right now, with the cases that exist among the population, hospitalizations are much lower than they were in January 2021", assured the president of the CA of CHUA.
In addition to the good news that this represents in terms of the weaker consequences of the pandemic, the less pressure on hospitals and the eventual return to Phase 1, the one in which there are fewer resources allocated to Covid-19 patients, allows us to continue to maintain the normal care activity and even make up for lost time.
“We do not suspend activity. Until now, even in Phase 2, we continued with all our activity, as this is the indication [of the Contingency Plan]. This is only expected to happen from Phase 3 onwards. Fortunately, we didn't need to go through that phase again and we kept the normal care activity, in terms of surgeries, consultations and everything else», revealed to our newspaper Ana Varges Gomes.
This normality was restored at the end of the first quarter of 2021 and, since then, «the activity has not been suspended again».
“We have managed to recover waiting lists. This has been our effort: to recover the lists in terms of consultations and surgeries. Compared to the previous year [2020], we had an increase in activity across the board, both in surgeries and consultations. The increase was noticeable”, he concluded.
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