Hospital Santa Maria detected four more cases in screening patients

Hospital Santa Maria detected four more positive cases of Covid-19, in addition to the two cases known on Wednesday, after “rigorous screening” of patients admitted to medical wards, a source at the hospital told Lusa.

According to the official source of the Centro Hospital Universitário Lisboa Norte (CHULN), these new cases are unrelated to the first two cases, which are from different wards

In the past few days, between inpatients and outpatients, more than 250 people have been tested, he said, reporting that “in addition to the two cases known on Wednesday, only four more positive cases were detected in inpatients” in light of the new case reviewed by the DGS, which now includes as a criterion for a suspected case the existence of a severe respiratory infectious condition without an identified agent.

“At this moment, this screening is practically completed, the results of eight patients are yet to be known”, underlined the same source

Regarding the professionals who contacted these patients, the results of nearly 160 tests are already known, all of them negative, he added.

Following the increase in the number of patients admitted to Covid-19, CHULN, which includes the Santa Maria and Pulido Valente hospitals, announced several measures on Friday, namely the suspension of external consultations and scheduled non-urgent surgeries.

Created the first infirmary in the country “exclusively dedicated” to receive patients with Covid-19, with a capacity for 22 people “.

To this ward is added an Intensive Care Unit with capacity for up to 11 patients and which can receive cases that require oxygenation by an extracorporeal membrane.

The hospital center also decided to suspend non-urgent external consultations, which will be rescheduled or replaced, when possible, by non-face-to-face consultations.

Scheduled non-urgent surgeries were also suspended, maintaining “all surgeries considered clinically essential, namely those related to oncological disease”, he stresses.

Next week, CHULN will have about 250 teleworkers, a measure that in the short term will cover 1,000 workers, mainly from non-assistance areas.

The Hospital Center will also have a new isolation space for suspicious cases with the Central Emergency, which joins another one that started operating earlier this week.

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