The Panama Government is actively  looking for at least 500  frontline healthcare  professionals, including doctors, nurses, laboratory workers, technicians, cleaners and personnel to administer tests across the country, to face the growing  Covid-19 pandemic

Eyra Ruiz, Minister Counselor for Health and Technical Secretary of the Advisory Health Council, said Saturday that to date the Ministry of Health and the Social Security Fund have hired about 1,000 people and are still looking for  at least another 500, to integrate them into the system.

“We are going to hire more personnel to look for the contacts of those infected and make swabs in the communities. We also look for hospitals, as internists and intensivists, respiratory therapists, nurses and nursing technicians, ”Ruiz said

Domingo Moreno, a coordinator of the National Negotiating Commission, described the figure of 500 seats as “insufficient”, if it is taken into account that more than 1,000 new hospital beds will be enabled in the Amador, Atlapa and Figali convention centers.

The increase in cases of Covid-19 disease in recent weeks, the urgency to expand the installed capacity of beds and the depletion of health personnel, led the Government to make an urgent call for new appointments.

Health Minister, Luis Francisco Sucre, has already said that work is being done on the call and on the adaptation of various rooms in the network of public hospitals for the care of patients with the Covid- 19.

"We are not going to allow people to die for lack of personnel," he said

in the Figali and Amador convention centers, in Ancón, as well as in Atlanta, in San Francisco, the idea of ​​the Health authorities is to enable 1,156 beds: 160 in Figali, 200 in Atlapa and 796 in Amador.

The CSS will also enable another 100 beds in its Training and Recreation Center in Las Cumbres, and in this same district it will prepare another 90 beds in a hotel, which will have medical and nursing care.

Ruiz said that, since the pandemic began last March, they have hired 1,000 health professionals, but many more are needed to detect cases in the communities (swabs), and doctors and nurses to care for patients in hospitals.

"The Advisory Council made a proposal on the urgency of 200 more doctors and nurses, but with the other health personnel required, it would reach 500 in total, also including specialists, such as pulmonologists and respiratory therapists," he added.

Mild and moderate patients would arrive at the convention centers, while the most serious would be in hospitals.

“The strategy against Covid-19 involves three arms: the first is to maintain installed capacity in hospitals; Then there is the traceability of new cases in the communities, and also supply food to the neediest population” said Ruiz "

Ruiz sent a message to the citizens: we are in an advanced phase of the pandemic, where all efforts are made to block transmission, but the population must cooperate. The government is doing its job, but people must do their part.