The Government assured this Tuesday that the hospitals of São João and Santo António, both in Porto, “maintain their response capacity” in relation to the outbreak of the new coronavirus (Covid-19). The announcement made by the Minister of Health, Marta Temido, contradicts the Director-General of Health, Graça Freitas, who said that the two confirmed cases in those two hospital units “have exhausted capacity”.
“Both the São João hospital and the Santo António hospital maintain their response capacity and were not overburdened by the two positive cases [do novo coronavírus]”, Assured Marta Temido, in the parliamentary health committee, whose theme was“ degradation of the operating conditions of hospitals of the National Health Service [SNS]”, But ended up focusing on clarifying the new coronavirus and the first two cases of infection in Portugal.
The guarantee of “responsiveness” of these hospitals comes a day after the director-general of Health has stated that the two hospital units “have exhausted capacity”, given that the negative pressure rooms of these health units had “other hospitalized patients” there, as well as “the two positive cases” already confirmed and suspected cases.
The Minister of Health said that, in the hospitals of São João and Santo António, there are about two thousand beds available for isolation of the patients, as well as 300 beds of intensive care and another 300 of negative pressure that can be “allocated to this outbreak ”, if necessary.
Marta Temido also revealed that there are several “second-tier hospitals” that are being prepared to respond to a possible increase in cases of infection by the new coronavirus registered in Portugal and listed some of them: Braga hospital, Centro Hospitalar do Porto, the Centro Hospitalar de Lisboa Norte, as well as the Centro Hospitalar Universitário do Algarve.
The new coronavirus was identified in late 2019 in Wuhan, having spread to all continents. According to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome) has already infected 90,663 people worldwide, of whom 3,124 have died.
In Portugal, there are already four confirmed cases infection with the new coronavirus. China is the country most affected, with 2,946 confirmed deaths. Iran followed (66 dead) and South Korea (34). In Europe, Italy is the country most affected, with 1,835 confirmed cases of infection and 52 dead.
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