Brazilian doctors say the situation is “well beyond chaos” even as the country’s COVID-sceptic president refuses to take decisive action against the pandemic.
An article in The Guardian reports that Brazil is facing the worst medical crisis in its history, as researchers from its leading healthcare institute, Fiocruz, have said the country is entering into a “catastrophe”.
COVID intensive care units in virtually all of the country’s hospitals are either full or almost full, with Fiocruz warning that “The situation is absolutely critical.”
Ricardo Barros, Bolsonaro’s leader in the lower house said on Wednesday: “Our situation isn’t all that critical. Compared to other countries, it’s actually quite comfortable.” This was said on a day in which 2798 fatalities and a record 90 830 new cases were reported.
However, intensive care physicians interviewed by The Guardian tell a different story.
“Things are desperate,” said Dr Hermeto Paschoalick, the head of the critical care unit in the midwestern state of Mato Grosso do Sul, where ICUs are currently 93% full.
Things were worse elsewhere, especially in the state’s capital. “I was told yesterday that there’s a health clinic there with 20 ambulances parked outside. The patients are arriving from small towns in the interior and there’s nowhere to put them – so they just keep them in the ambulances,” said Dr Paschoalick.
Although most in his care were over 60s, Dr Paschoalick said there were young people as well. “Right now, I’ve got three people on ventilators including a 22-year-old woman and another who is 25. Both were pregnant when they arrived. One lost the baby, the other managed to give birth. Both are intubated and in a really bad state,” he said.
Many doctors are forced to choose which patients can receive a bed in ICU.
“People are going around saying Brazil is going to collapse,” said critical care doctor Pedro Carvalho at a university hospital in the riverside town of Petrolina. “But we’ve collapsed already – completely collapsed.”
Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro meanwhile, shows no sign of changing his stance, claiming that there is a “war” against him.
Source: The Guardian
