G20 summit: hospitals on red alert, with reserved beds and delayed surgery – 28/11/2018

Intensive therapy beds are reserved. The surgeries scheduled for this week will not be performed. The services of keep they have badigned reserve teams, consisting of doctors and technicians who, on call, will have up to one hour to introduce themselves and begin work. These days, the hospitals they think more by color –Red and yellow-, only by their names or specialties, and a lot of the city and part of the province are on alert. The reason is the G20 summit.

"We work with a conflict hypothesis. A concept may be unfortunate, because too warlike, but that translates into the preparation for an event that causes several victims, "he explains. Clarin a doctor Ricardo Gutiérrez Children's Hospital, who asks for the reservation of his name. He is not worried. He says that it's a speculation, that in medicine, it is necessary to exaggerate and that it is better to prepare for an event that rarely happens than not to do it.

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From the weekend in Gutiérrez, surgical interventions requiring intensive postoperative treatment have been suspended. The decision started from Ministry of Health of Buenos Aires that during the summit he asks the pediatric hospital and other seven medical institutions of the city, the largest number of free beds in critical and intermediate areas.

In addition, as part of the adaptation process, the Gutiérrez authorities adapted a cardiovascular therapy to the treatment of all types of patients and set up a unit that supports the simultaneous entry of dozens of wounded, with red, yellow and green sectors for the distribution of patients, according to their severity.

"The G20 is a special event, in which there may be chemical incidents, toxic fumes, pepper spray, different scenarios that require us to have a detoxification zone, which is already being considered," adds doctor. He and the other professionals of the public centers concerned work in the following areas: the G20 summit in the German city of Hamburg. It was last year and it was one of the most violent meetings. 100,000 protesters, 186 detainees, 225 temporary arrests and 400 wounded policemen.

In the city of Buenos Aires, hospitals on red alert for the summit are Argerich, Fernandez, Santojanni, Quemados, Santa Lucia, Gutiérrez, Pirovano and Tornú. In the latter, in his entry on Combatants of Malvinas, in Chas Park, the pbadage by car is restricted. "It's not to saturate the parking lot and allow takeoff or landing of a helicopter "said a doctor from the hospital.

He has over 25 years of service and remembers similar preparations during Bill Clinton's visit to Buenos Aires in 1997. "The difference is that he was president and there are now 19 of them," he says, adding that the preparation is going on now. increase the amount of staff on call and increase the attention capacity of the critical area by 20%. It defines: "It is a preventive planning, to react in case of emergency".

In recent weeks, doctors, nurses and technicians have been informed of changes in care, social networks and WhatsApp have served as a sounding board.

The first document that became viral was a standard issued by the management of the municipal hospital that suspended ordinary licenses, participation in conferences, conferences and symposia, to bring together the largest number of staff in the past days and during the development of the G20. Closely, each medical center has made requests regarding the obligation to free the beds and make them available to the caretaker. In addition, the audios came and played. Some, like a supposed nurse from Udaondo Hospital, who urged not to leave homes during the summit, said that "it was supposed that there would be 1,500 dead. " The audio has no basis.

But beyond fake content, WhatsApp and Twitter also work with a channel in which the same doctors discuss the scope of "working with a conflict hypothesis".

All institutions do not solve cases of great complexity or are not equal in resources, infrastructure and equipment. "Some hospitals are not able to absorb a disaster. Many are discarded. Here, there is not even a thread to suture, "complains a service manager at Durand Hospital, who is on yellow alert, and in Pirovano, there are also complaints.

"We knew the G20 a year ago, but in the last few days they have started telling me," Look, if you have to reinforce it, "it does not exist, how did it get here? There is no subway, no train, buses and the city Much is closed, "says a doctor on call.

An emergency committee was set up in Pirovano, but the organization did not think it was correct: "Several months ago, we had to rearm the guards and decide who would come. At present, the technicians are not even called, and without them, the rooms to use, "says and ends:" The idea of ​​strengthening with the staff sounds good, but in practice, it is inapplicable. "

Dr. Alejandro García Escudero, one of the leaders of the hospital El Cruce, by Florencio Vareladissent "We are in conditions, we have staff, drugs, prostheses, disposable equipment, orthopedic devices," he says. Because of the proximity of the Buenos Aires Hospital with the capital, to have a heliport and to be a center of great complexity, he joined the registry. It works under yellow alert.

"This designation implies that guards, like other doctors and technicians, become redundant," says García Escudero, "so that in case of an event, they are called, they come quickly and let themselves fall to the Pay attention, but, just in case, there is a logistics of prevention ".