Health system at critical point

The Health authorities of Panama are adapting sports facilities and field hospitals to admit covid patients due to the strong rebound in the disease, which is registering unprecedented numbers of new daily cases and has brought the health system to a “critical point”.

The director of the Social Security Fund (CSS), Enrique Lau, visited on Saturday the Roberto Kelly gym, , where “250 beds will be installed for patients with covid who are in a moderate phase” and those who are ” leaving the inflammatory phase and are quite stable “.

The CSS also reported that it finished installing a 40-bed field hospital onSaturday that it is expected to begin receiving patients soon. “The number of cases is rising dramatically, the number of people who need hospitalization and those who require special care within hospitals,” Lau told reporters Likewise, Health MinisterLuis Francisco Sucre, toured the facilities of the Instituto Superior Especializado del Este (ITSE), located on the outskirts of the capital, whose gym will be readjusted to install 114 beds for patients wiiththe covid. Friday the health authorities warned that Panama’s health system is at “a critical point” and that for this reason it was “enabling the hospital network” with the increase in beds. Panama, a country of 4.2 million inhabitants, has experienced a strong rebound in covid since the beginning of November, which the authorities have linked to the almost total reopening of the economy since mid-October and to the disorder of a part of the population .

The authorities have extended the extended night curfew and, have announced quarantines at Christmas and the end of the year and the restriction of mobility by gender only to make purchases in retail stores from Monday, among other measures.