Omicron advances push health professionals out of jobs | National Magazine

You don’t even have to go inside to find the emergency room is full. The increase in demand for care is evident at the gates of public hospitals and in the waiting rooms of private hospitals as well.

In one of these private labs, the demand for Covid tests has increased so dramatically that the line has ended up on the sidewalk. Outside, we counted nearly 40 people. And there is still a drive-through service car line, which runs nearby.

With only increasing demand, Health units across the country suffer from a shortage of workers. In Maceió, 40 professionals have already been removed, according to the Ministry of Health.

In Porto Alegre, the number tripled in one week. There are already at least 1,228 workers infected with confirmed or suspected COVID-19.

The city council of Guaxupé, in southern Minas, has sent 90 employees from health centers and Santa Casa in the city.

Since December, in Rio, the number of people on vacation due to respiratory syndromes has reached 5,500.

In Sao Paulo, the state health department is causing 1,700 cases to be missing from the public network. It looks small in the face of the 170,000-plus employees, but it’s worrying as it hits tired teams nearly two years into the pandemic.

“There was a 30% increase in the demand for care for mild and moderate cases in emergency rooms and emergency rooms. At the height of the second wave, for example, we had to face 30,000 inpatients on the same day,” says Eduardo Ribeiro, Executive Secretary of Health in São Paulo, Today we have 5,550 patients in hospital, but we already have very intense pressure on health workers and it is a difficult time.”

A survey conducted by the Regional Nursing Council of São Paulo gives an idea of ​​the increased workload. Almost 82% of respondents said they see more patients; 41% reported having experienced verbal abuse; And 33% reported that the working day has increased.

A routine is well known to Rodrigo, a public emergency room nurse in São Paulo who is feeling overwhelmed.

“Firstly, it’s hard for us to be able to go out on our own schedule. We spent 12 hours on duty, but the truth is that we spend a little more than that, 13 hours on duty to be able to help colleagues. And that’s with so many patients. ‘, says emergency nurse Rodrigo de Sousa Pereira.

The management of the Emilio Ribas Institute, a reference in infectious diseases, appealed to doctors from all sectors of the hospital to cover the gaps in the work schedule: “These are the professionals who are out there on the front line, in places like emergency care and intensive care units, and it is sometimes difficult for us to replace them so quickly ” .

The embezzlement in the teams of doctors and nurses occurs suddenly and worries those who continue to work.

“You start to shift and all of a sudden it becomes two minus, minus three in one day all at once. It means fear. Unfortunately, it is a heavy word, however, fear and anxiety are words that describe very little of what we are currently experiencing in this new wave,” he says. Rodrigo de Sousa Pereira.