Although the flu peak has been delayed this season and has managed to avoid the Christmas holidays, Hospital emergency services are already stressed due to the increase in income and They “expectantly” await the peak of the epidemic in about 10 days.
The vice president of the Spanish Society of Emergency Medicine (SEMES) and head of the Emergency Department at the Reina Sofía University Hospital in Murcia regrets in statements to EFE that the collapse is already planning on these services, which is giving rise to “certain problems.” in different degrees” to admit patients.
According to the latest data from the Carlos III Health Institute, published this Thursday, in the first week of the year, Respiratory diseases—flu, covid-19 and Respiratory Syncytial Virus—have increased their incidence in Primary Care by up to 49% compared to the last seven days of 2024going from 562.9/100,000 inhabitants to 639.8 cases. In hospitals, it has risen from 19.7 to 23.
The flu is the one that advances most strongly: from an estimated rate of 134 cases detected in health centers it has risen to 200.9, while the rate of hospital admissions has almost doubled from 2.5 cases/100,000 inhabitants to 4.7.
Nevertheless, the pace at which it does so is much lower than last yearwhen on these dates the rate in Primary Care was 429.1 and the rate of hospitalizations was 17.2.
This is precisely what hospitals have been noticing for days: an increase in the incidence of respiratory pathology mainly due to influenza and RSV, and much less, “practically almost anecdotal”, of covid.
However, having escaped the peak of incidence during Christmas, when the lack of staff due to the holidays aggravates collapse situations, the centers are already experiencing the tension that is reproduced every season.
A sick person holding a thermometer.
These days, hospitals reduce their surgical activity to oncological pathology and emergencies, which frees up “a certain number of beds”; but since the increase in income is coinciding with the restart of this activity, the eventual relief that could derive from a delay in the peak is not so much, and “on many occasions these services are dawning with patients to be admitted.”
“If we could have adequate drainage to be able to take the sick to medium-care or lower-level care hospitals, we could be a little better,” says Piñera.
When emergencies collapse “the entire system is collapsed”because if the hospital beds are full, there is nowhere to admit patients; At the same time, Primary Care is forced to end up referring patients to these services because they require urgent complementary examinations that cannot be done at this level of care.
A nurse giving a vaccine
The solution to prevent the same situation from repeating itself year after year belongs to everyone, says the emergency doctor: on the one hand, from politics, which must prioritize the technical issue and try to “dialogue and reach an agreement because it is a health and safety issue.” try to organize the country’s emergency services in the appropriate way” according to the available resources.
On the other hand, “the common sense” of the patients themselves. “A young person of 30 years old, with no underlying pathology, can perfectly get through the flu at home with paracetamol, liquids and little else, there is practically no reason for them to go to their primary doctor.”
Another situation is that of “a 75-year-old man with hypertension, diabetes, with a history of ischemic heart disease or a stroke. He should go to his doctor and if he has significant dyspnea, to a hospital.”
However, the vice president of Semes predicts that, although much less intense than the previous season, the worst of this season is yet to come. “We probably have 10 days left in which we will be waiting to see how it evolves.“he concludes.
Source: www.huffingtonpost.es
