This Monday, December 18, pediatricians asked anyone who comes into contact with babies and children to wash their hands and wear a mask if they have flu-like symptoms, to prevent little ones from contracting respiratory infections that are clogging emergency rooms and hospital admissions.
The coordinator of Medical Pediatrics at Hospital D. Estefânia, in Lisbon, Luís Varandas and pediatrician Manuel Magalhães, from the Pediatric Pulmonology Unit at Centro Materno Infantil do Norte (CMI), reported today to Lusa that the emergency rooms are full and there are many children hospitalized with RSV respiratory syncytial virus, responsible for the majority of bronchiolitis, but highlighted that it is a common situation at this time of year.
«It's a situation that we are used to experiencing every year», with the virus circulating from November to March, causing a lot of illness in children, many respiratory infections, requiring hospitalization in most cases, said Manuel Magalhães.
According to the pediatrician, the peak of infections was «a little earlier» this year: «in the Centro Materno Infantil do Norte, since mid-October, we have persistently had over 10 beds occupied every day with babies with RSV bronchiolitis».
The D. Estefânia pediatric hospital is also “completely overcrowded”, with more than 300 cases per day in the emergency room, said Luís Varandas, noting that “it is common” in winter to have this peak in respiratory infections.
«The hospitalizations are completely full, with extra beds, already with great effort from all professionals, especially the nurses, who have many more patients to care for», said Luís Varandas.
Faced with this reality, pediatricians call for the adoption of non-pharmacological preventive measures, such as those used during the pandemic, to avoid infecting children: washing hands regularly, wearing masks if the person has flu-like symptoms and cleaning and airing spaces.
«In the same way, if a baby is sick, avoid going to nursery or nursery school», said Manuel Magalhães, highlighting that RSV has «a big impact, not only in pediatrics, but also in the elderly, so it ends up put great pressure on the entire health system and on families».
He advised parents not to take their children to shopping centers or closed spaces, where viruses circulate "much more intensely" and to go for a walk outdoors: "the air temperature and the cold do not make you sick."
According to Manuel Magalhães, RSV requires babies to spend at least one to two weeks at home and, during this period, they often have to go to the emergency room two, three, four times, which forces parents to miss work. .
To minimize this impact, doctors are trying to raise awareness among policy makers to create standards that make life easier for parents.
Luís Varandas, in turn, appealed to parents not to take their children to the emergency room if the respiratory infection has mild symptoms.
«It's not worth coming to the emergency room», because by spending hours in the waiting room they run the risk of catching another respiratory infection and the cycle perpetuates itself, making it difficult to interrupt if this behavior is not changed.
The coordinator highlighted that the clinical symptoms of RSV and influenza are “much more serious under one year of age” and that this leads to many hospitalizations.
“We have many hospitalized cases and we even have cases of children who have to be transferred” to prevent them from being infected by children with RSV or flu admitted to the same ward.
This weekend there were transfers of patients from surgical areas to medical areas, which requires bed management that further exacerbates the problem.
Comments