A team of 26 caregivers and medical equipment sent by Germany arrived this Wednesday in Portugal, whose hospitals are overwhelmed by the explosion in the number of cases of coronavirus.
The military plane carrying eight doctors and trained medical staff, as well as 50 breathing apparatuses, 150 infusion sets and 150 medical beds touched down at Lisbon airport in the afternoon. The German team will work in a private hospital in the Portuguese capital, to increase the means of this establishment, which had already allocated 106 beds, including 25 in intensive care, to the treatment of Covid-19 patients, the group announced. Luz Saude in a press release.
The arrival of German reinforcements, scheduled for Monday, will make it possible to operate “a unit that existed but that we could not open for lack of human resources”, explained the Portuguese Minister of Health, Marta Temido, who went to welcome them in the airport. “The pandemic in Portugal has clearly become problematic in recent weeks. (…) Hospitals are overflowing. That is why we are needed there, ”General Ulrich Baumgärtner, General Ulrich Baumgärtner, had declared before leaving Germany.
Germany had already provided aid to Italy, France and the Czech Republic during the first “wave” of contaminations last spring, for example by welcoming patients to certain hospitals in its territory. Apart from the micro-states, in January Portugal became the country hardest hit by the epidemic caused by the coronavirus, in terms of the number of deaths and new cases compared to its population of around 10 million inhabitants.
Dead while waiting for help
With 240 deaths in 24 hours, the total death toll of the pandemic stands at 13,257 deaths, nearly half of which since the start of the year, according to data communicated on Wednesday by the Directorate General of Health. A little over 9,000 new cases have been identified, which is a rebound from the previous two days but it remains below the average of some 12,000 daily contagions recorded during the second half of January.
To curb the runaway epidemic after easing of health restrictions at Christmas, the Portuguese government imposed a second general confinement in mid-January. Despite the new measures, hospitals remained under pressure, forcing authorities to move patients from the Lisbon region to areas where hospitals are less saturated.
Local media for example reported on Wednesday the case of a woman who died at her home in Guarda (center) while awaiting the arrival of an ambulance and that of a couple treated for three days in a hospital emergency chair. of Setubal (south) for lack of room in infirmary.
AFP / LQ
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