The doctor and member of the board of directors of the Panamanian Association of Intensive Care Physicians , Eduardo Prado Pinedo, told RPC Radio that the situation of COVID-19 in intensive care and in hospital wards is extremely critical and is caring to people ages 29 to 40, who often don't survive.
In the vertiginous increase of cases there is a situation that worries us very much and that is that the age or the average age of the patients who are entering both the ward and the intensive care unit, which is around 1,700, is every day more It is common to see patients of 29, 32, 35 and about 40 years old in an intensive care unit in extremely serious situations or who have not been able to get out of this situation, the doctor said.
On the other hand, the director of intensive care teaching at the Santo Tomás Hospital pointed out that it is useless to enable more beds if there is an exhausted, disappointed or insufficient staff to have the response capacity for so many patients with
coronavirus.
At this point, Prado Pinedo indicated that the association will be issuing a statement in the next few hours where it will indicate its guidelines for the hiring of foreign medical professionals.
In this case the Panamanian Association of intensivist doctors is taking a somewhat different position. We agree that foreign doctors come, but we are formulating a statement where we will express our concerns, our suggestions as which doctors should come to serve the population, indicated the doctor.
The intensivist also pointed out that as a union they have requested the closure or a quarantine for 14 days, since they indicate that it is useless to make closings for 4 or 5 days, since this does not provide the best benefit for the control of the pandemic. In the same way, they point out that the prohibition measure imposed at this time only leads to crowds of places that sold alcohol hours before closing.
Prado reiterated to the population that the best measure that can be taken is self-care, not unnecessarily exposing oneself to the spread of
COVID-19.