Uruguay: an investigation is opened for a patient who m …

At the worst time of the coronavirus pandemic in Uruguay, a man was taken by wheelbarrow to a polyclinic in the town of Isidoro Noblía, where he died of cardiac arrest. For the confusing episode the director of the primary care network (RAP) from the Cerro Largo department, Jonathan Milan, requested to open an administrative investigation. According to the Uruguayan Society of Intensive Medicine (SUMI), there is a total occupancy of 76 percent of intensive care beds and 48 percent correspond to patients with covid-19. Due to the lack of beds, some ambulances wait up to 10 hours to admit infected patients.

The night before the dramatic outcome, the man – whose identity has not been revealed refused to be transferred to the nearest health center according to local police, who immediately submitted a report to the prosecution. The next day, a neighbor contacted the polyclinic to take the patient, who had suffered cardiac arrest.

The medical and nursing staff authorized the transfer but an ambulance was not requested, which was apparently available. “There was no omission of health personnel,” however assured the attempt of Isidoro Noblía, Fabio Freire, as revealed by the Subrayado portal.

“He informed that he was going to bring the patient. He never warned that he was going to bring it by wheelbarrow. The ambulance was there. If the service was requested, the service was there ”, defended Jonathan Milan, director of the RAP of Cerro Largo. According to Milan, arriving at the polyclinic, they tried to revive the patient without success.

After the fatal outcome, Milan ordered the opening of an administrative investigation. “Generally speaking, the idea is to see if there has been an irregularity,” he said, adding: “I asked the attending physician to file a complaint for an autopsy.”

Silvia Martil, neighbor of the deceased, gave a very different take on events in Subrayado. “Carlitos, the person who took the patient, was told that there was no doctor and that there was no way to take him. So he decided to take the wheelbarrow. They took a long time to get interested, which is very common here in Noblía “Martin assured.

The neighbor of Isidoro Noblía, a town near the border with Brazil, added: “They gave him gloves and asked Carlitos to bathe him. He told them: “I did not come to bathe the patient, I came to have him checked. They took a long time stamping it to find out if it was coronavirus. Then it was negative. Died pending“.

Beyond the cross versions, the truth is that A few days ago, the health system began to show the first signs of saturation in Uruguay. The waits are getting long for paramedics due to the lack of intensive care beds. The situation becomes more evident when visiting emergency rooms in Montevideo, where the staff took care of the newspaper The country that “it has never been seen”.