QCOSTARICA – The Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social (CCSS) ran out of space to transfer 13 patients who are in different hospitals around the country and require an Intensive Services Unit (ICU).
This was confirmed by the Medical Manager of the CCSS, Dr. Mario Ruiz, during the live radio program Nuestra Voz Tuesday morning.
“The situation is very worrying, in fact last night (Monday) we already reached a point that worries us a lot and that is that we have 13 patients pending transfers from different hospitals in metropolitan areas and regional hospitals to intensive care beds and that is because there is no availability of bed.
“In fact, we have a critical patient from the Guápiles Hospital that we have not been able to transfer, nine severe patients and three mild patients (one from the Turrialba Hospital and the other from San Ramón,” explained Ruiz.
The nine patients in severe condition who must be transferred are located in the San Vicente de Paul Hospital (Heredia), Alajuela Hospital and the Escalante Pradilla, in Perez Zeledon.
“This is what we wanted to avoid, they are patients who are in a condition that warrants transfer,” said the Medical Manager, regretting that there is no space to do them.
“If we as a health system, as Caja, were a patient, at this time the health system as such is in intensive care, the country is in intensive care because we are already reaching the moment when patients are going to arrive to accumulate in the different hospitals,” he added.
The situation and crisis that hospitals are currently experiencing causes each health center to make decisions, for example, on Tuesday the San Juan de Dios Hospital will set up a field hospital to vacate beds for Covid-19 patients and send to the field hospital to patients with other diseases.
“The system no longer, in fact, the quality of care will not be the same and this worries me a lot because it will be for both Covid-19 diseases and non-Covid diseases,” added Ruiz who explained that for CCSS officials are also working on new strategies to expand the capacity of hospitals, however, he recalled that the capacity is limited and that is why they ask people to take care of themselves and comply with all health and distancing protocols to prevent infections keep increasing.
