“We ran out of oxygen,” desperate request from director of GBA clinic

“I know we are in a pandemic, but that never happened, not even a week ago. It’s from now we ran out of oxygen and Thursday evening, in an extreme situation, we had to refer intensive care patients to other clinics which played the gaucho on us ”.

The concern of the director of Clínica Privada Centro, General Rodríguez, is palpable in the face of the second wave of coronavirus. “They don’t provide us with oxygen and without oxygen, we cannot take patients“.

Mariano Cutuli is the general manager of a family clinic with 140 employees and a capacity of 56 floor beds and 12 intensive therapy beds. Today he has half an empty clinic because he cannot offer the basic tool: oxygen.

“The supplier told me, ‘I can’t give you, I don’t have tubes or thermos’, the latter used for seriously ill patients, so I had to refer them quickly because they risked dying. It never happened, never ”, expresses itself between astonishment, despair and shock.

Because there was no way to transfer these patients and no other possible destination “because there is no bed anywhere” -this was the response of the call center-, Cutuli launched a call for contact with clinical colleagues “who, with an attitude of great humanity, received -the Thursday- six people and this Friday two others, all aged in fifty-year-old average. . Acted quickly and found a suitable destination for my patients, it gave my soul back to my body. “

He hired a private ambulance service and these internees were referred to Ramos Mejía, Laferrere and Merlo. “The situation was stressful for everyone, for the patients, their families and for us. I had the balls in my throat, for what a similar movement implies in these times and for loved ones, which had to be contained “.

Cutuli says that “this oxygen starvation situation was not seen coming, it’s happened now, this week. And I don’t know how to qualify the missing, what to attribute it to. I know this happens in some clinics in La Plata and Lomas del Mirador, where oxygen providers callthey rush you with sudden changes in payment method. If it was ninety days they ask for thirty and it has also happened that they said “we will bring it to you if you transfer the money to us now”. Fortunately with my supplier, this did not happen. Although I have tried to open the game and others provide me with oxygen, today, under these conditions, they do not take new clients“.

The picture is complicated and it has suddenly changed. “Until a week ago, we oxygen has come to us every four or five days, now it’s multiplied and it’s every other day or every other day, there is an unusual demand. Here are 25 tubes for floor patients and guards, and 5 thermos – which are larger – for intensive therapy. We are notifying what is happening and we are informing FECLIBA (Federation of Clinics of the Province of Buenos Aires), our regulatory body, to take action on it. “

Cutuli says how complex it is “to reject patients with availability, but we can’t take the risk if we don’t have assured oxygen. There are an average of 150 consultations a day, 90% are due. to covid, but unfortunately we are not in a position to do an internship for anyone, which, although it served to decompress the stifling situation, is very painful for this family clinic which has been operating since 1976.

PS