Hospital beds occupied by patients who ignored vaccination call

Patients without a vaccine against COVID-19 or with an incomplete scheme occupy the beds in the the Nicolás A. Solano Hospital in the La Chorrera district

A hospital review shows the lack of receptivity of the population to the call made by the   Ministry of Health (Minsa)to go to health facilities to apply the vaccine against the virus that arrived in the country in March 2020.

The hospital director, Eliécer Santamaría,  said that hospitalized patients with COVID-19 are of all ages, but older adults who require oxygen as life support stand out.  

Santamaría did not give details of the total number of hospitalized patients but indicated that half have two vaccines, four with three doses and only one patient had four.  He indicated that this last patient has a “mild ” picture of the disease, despite having comorbidities. 

The director said that they set up a room, which was previously used for pediatric observation, with 18 beds and a cot to care for patients with COVID-19 and have medical supplies such as oxygen, medicines, and personal health protection equipment. 

The provincial director of the Minsa, in West Panama, Kevin Cedeño, like Santamaría, reported that hospitalized patients do not have their full vaccination schedule.

Cedeño maintained that  Panama Oeste currently maintains 1,036 active cases of COVID-19, with the district of Arraiján occupying first place with 648 confirmed cases.

The 1,036 confirmed cases in Panama West are part of the 7,091 reported by the Minsa in week 48, from November 27 to December 3. 

Doctor Francisco Sánchez Cárdenas, who participates in a commission created by the Minsa to attend to everything related to the arrival of the virus, called on the population not to panic due to the new rebound in this disease.

Annual vaccination “With this disease, we will have to live from now on and we must get vaccinated, as is done with the flu, depending on the strain that predominates, every year,”  stressed Sánchez Cárdenas. In addition, he attributed the rise in cases to factors such as the decision to lift some biosecurity measures and the appearance of variants of the virus with greater contagion capacity. 

For Sánchez Cárdenas, the decision to lift some restrictions was the correct one, because with the application of the vaccines and the participation of the community due to the appearance of the COVID-19 cases, but everything changed with the appearance of new variants of the virus, although less deadly have more capacity to infect people.