QCOSTARICA – The saturation of the emergency service of the Calderón Guardia Hospital due to the increase in covid-19 patients forced the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social (CCSS) to activate 24-hour emergency care in the Zapote-Cathedral health areas (Clínica Carlos Durán) and in Carmen-Montes de Oca (Central Clinic), until Sunday, June 5, inclusive.
The increase in demand has been registered since Saturday, May 28, reported Albert Méndez Vega, director of the Integrated Network for the Provision of Services of the South Central Region, in a press release. The measure is taken to take pressure off the services and ensure that the sick are treated as quickly as possible.
These two health areas are added to those of Goicoechea 2 and Coronado, which belong to the Calderón Guardia Hospital network, working 24 hours a day. Méndez Vega said that there is an increase of 66.8% in emergency services in the South Central Region between April and May, when comparing the first 22 days of each month.
“The data shows that we went from 50,197 services in covid-19 areas in April to 83,743 in May. This is the real impact of the current pandemic wave that our country is experiencing,” Méndez Vega emphasized. At the same time, the attention to non-Covid cases also increased.
The South Central direction includes the metropolitan area of San José and Cartago and is made up of 31 health areas and the Max Peralta Jiménez (Cartago) and William Allen Taylor (Turrialba) hospitals.