Some thirty emergency workers from the La Paz Hospital have notified the duty judge of the “collapse” of this service, which on Tuesday dawned with 70 patients waiting to be admitted to the plant, while the center maintains 435 beds closed “with the excuse that there are fewer patients in summer”.
“Given the obvious risk to the safety of patients and to the mental health of workers, they have decided to bring this serious situation to the attention of the courts,” they say in a statement sent to La Vanguardia.
“If, despite all our efforts, an adverse event occurs that affects the health of our patients, we will not be complicit in this mistreatment suffered by patients and workers,” they indicate in the letter addressed to the judge.
The spokesman for the Trabajadores en Red union, Guillén del Barrio, explained to EFE that the closing of hospital beds is “a common practice” in summer. However, del Barrio strongly criticizes the closure of a percentage of beds higher than the decrease in patients. “It is admissible that 10% of the beds are closed because there is a 10% decrease in the number of patients, but in the Community of Madrid as a whole 20% of hospital beds have been closed and, specifically , La Paz, which is one of the largest hospitals, has closed more than 35% of its beds, which are 435,” he said.
The criticism has been joined by the Federation of Associations for the Defense of Public Health, which reiterates that “it is not possible to meet the health needs of citizens with the scarcity of public hospital resources in the Community of Madrid, and even more so when this deficit is aggravated by unjustified and very high bed closures”. And he blames the situation on “the economic policy that decapitalizes the public system and does not carry out the necessary contracts to replace the staff on vacation.”
According to the hospital management, the Adult Emergency Service is having a higher than normal influx of patients for this time of year, possibly due to the heat episode that produces decompensations that aggravate the situation of multipathological patients, especially those of advanced age. and those with respiratory and cardiological conditions, as well as a rebound in covid-19 cases.
“Despite the situation, the hospital strives to offer patients adequate care based on their process and clinical priority,” sources from the center have highlighted. And it lists a series of measures such as the opening in the ER of a room for 18 patients awaiting admission to Carlos III and Cantoblanco, the reassessment of patients likely to be cared for by the Home Hospitalization Unit, as well as transfer to the Hospital Enfermera Elizabeth Zendal.
In this sense, from the hospital center they argue that this reorganization in summer allows undertaking numerous improvement works and maintenance work on the floors that must be done without the presence of hospitalized patients and that it would not be possible to carry out at another time of the year.
