The significant increase in care pressure in both hospital admissions and intensive care units (ICU), as well as the consequent increase in the incidence accumulated in the Valencian Community, has forced the Ministry of Health to adopt a series of organizational measures of health care giving priority to the fight against the coronavirus pandemic but without forgetting those patients or diagnoses whose early detection can mean saving a life, as is the case of cancer. Thus, non-preferential diagnostic tests and scheduled admissions have been suspended, with the exception of those programs involved in rapid cancer diagnosis, which will be considered priority or non-delayed, such as breast and colon cancer screening, and rapid circuits. protocolized.
Contrary to what happened during the first wave of the pandemic, when these tests were also postponed, this time Health has tried to correct the possible problems arising from this paralysis of diagnoses that can be vital for the patient. As already warned by the Head of Oncology of the IVO Foundation, Vicente Guillem, delays in laboratories, diagnostic imaging services and operating rooms had a very negative impact on the fight against cancer, when they reached the tumors in state more advanced than other years, as indicated in an interview with this same newspaper.
Likewise, the Ministry of Health and Public Health has suspended all scheduled surgical activity, “except for those urgent conditions that are not delayed or derivable.” Thus, the surgical staff will be assigned other tasks, “depending on the needs of the department.” Similarly, shipments of shock plan patients from departments are also suspended. However, cases may be referred from the Central Services of the Ministry if deemed necessary.
Non-contact consultations
Another of the measures adopted is to prioritize assistance through non-face-to-face consultations in Primary Care. Health explains that face-to-face outpatient consultations in the various specialties will be grouped in the hospital and should be limited to non-delayed ones. “The follow-up and review of stories will preferably be carried out by telephone by the doctor. Non-face-to-face interconsultations and telemedicine should be encouraged to avoid unnecessary travel for patients, ”they remark.
Visits to hospitalized patients are strictly prohibited, unless necessary, allowing the presence of a single companion as a caregiver of chronic, minor, or dependent patients. The latter group includes women in childbirth.
In those cases that, due to the special characteristics of patients and their relatives (minors, complex social situations or end of life…), it will be the management of the health center that assesses “whether the physical presence of companions or volunteers can contribute decisively in the evolution of the process, as an exception to the rule always taking into account the general instructions for accompanying minor and dependent patients, and reducing this face-to-face activity to everything that cannot be done by electronic means or it cannot be delayed until the epidemiological situation improves “, health sources clarify.
The Director General of Health Care, Mariam García Layunta, reported yesterday that the health departments, as they did in the first wave, are implementing their contingency plans, which basically consist of “expanding spaces, doubling beds that allow that a greater capacity of assistance in room and critics exists ”.
“This means that at the moment we still have enough capacity to respond to the demands we are having and, in addition, we have other facilities that we did not have in the first wave, such as the field hospitals that are prepared or the Ernest Lluch hospital ».
The general director also recalled that, in addition, in November the Minister of Health, Ana Barceló, “issued a resolution where the resources of private health were made available to us in this public-private collaboration”. Thus, non-covid critically ill patients will be transferred to private hospitals preferably, according to the geographical proximity to the patient’s home. In the case of patients who have suffered a stroke, heart attack or other non-delayed emergencies, if there is no bed available in the Department of Health or in the reference hospital, once the treatment of the acute process has been completed, they may be referred for to the continuity of treatment in a private center.
Field hospitals ready to receive patients
The Ministry of Health is finalizing the preparations because in the event of requiring greater hospital capacity in the near future, the field hospitals have the necessary infrastructure to be operational in the shortest possible time. The effects of storm ‘Filomena’ could be delaying the use of tents located next to La Fe Hospital. As for the beds at Ernest Lluch Hospital, they will all become functional.
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