QCOSTARICA – 48 patients with covid-19, the majority in severe and moderate condition, this Thursday morning were waiting for a bed in a hospital in San José.
As reported by the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social (CCSS), they are 4 patients in critical condition, 25 in severe condition, and 19 moderate. No further details were given. The Caja would only say that the list of covid patients waiting for a bed has been growing.
It went from six on April 29 to 65 on Wednesday, May 5. The number dropped to 48 yesterday, Thursday, May 6, but it is still critical because it involves patients who have not been able to access the specialized medical services they require.
Caja authorities acknowledged the situation in a press conference, on Wednesday, in which they indicated that most hospitals, located in the capital, with the ability to handle complex cases are saturated.
This Thursday, the Ministry of Health reported 1,153 covid patients in hospitals, mainly in public medical centers, of which 409 are in intensive care,
“It’s going to get more complicated. More and more people are going to die. Please, this is resolved with personal attitudes. Don’t go out, don’t expose yourself. We are in a critical situation, it is the most complicated that the Caja has experienced in its 80 years,” said CCSS medical manager, the face of the Caja these last several weeks, Dr. Mario Ruiz Cubillo.
Marco Vargas, medical director of the Specialized Center for the Care of Patients with Covid-19 (Ceaco), compared the current moment with saturated airports.
“The services are crowded. It is as if we have 65 airplanes looking for a suitable runway to land. Not all runways are suitable. We have had to assign critical patients to moderate or severe beds because there is no other option,” he said, referring to the people who were waiting for space on Wednesday.
Following a decrease in new cases over the weekend, after a record-setting week last week, the number of new cases stepped over the 2,000 mark again, on Wednesday, May 5, with 2,555 new cases and 2,559 new cases 24 hours later, on Thursday, May 6.
The accumulated cases reported by the Ministry of Health on Thursday, May 6, is now 263,094, of which 132,156 are men and 130,938 are women, ranging in age from 0 to 113, with an average age of 38.1.
On Wednesday there were 16 deaths associated with covid reported, on Thursday, 15, for an accumulated total of 3,341 since March 2020.
