More patients with COVID-19 return to the IESS hospitals; in Quito and Guayaquil there are no longer beds in the ICU

Once again, the pilgrimage and movement of relatives who seek to admit their patients to hospitals begins to be seen because the recent contagion of COVID-19 seriously affected their health.

This increase has also been seen in hospitals of the Ecuadorian Social Security Institute (IESS), where there are no longer beds available in the ICUs of their specialized or reference centers, such as those in Quito and Guayaquil.

According to the latest IESS report, also published on their social networks at 12:47 on November 5, the Teodoro Maldonado Carbo, Los Ceibos hospitals (both in Guayaquil); Carlos Andrade Marín and Quito Sur (in Quito, the capital of Ecuador) do not have beds available in the ICU for critical COVID-19 patients.

While in the Machala General Hospital and in the José Carrasco Arteaga, in Cuenca, there are, in each one, three beds in the ICU available for patients with COVID-19. This is stated in the report published by the entity and which has a cutoff of November 4, 2021, the most recent.

At the national level, and according to this latest report, the IESS has 26 beds in the ICU available for COVID-19 of the 78 beds destined for critical or serious patients of this disease in 24 social security hospitals.

Likewise, in the Hospitalization area, 281 beds out of 392 are still free for patients with the virus in the 24 IESS hospitals that treat cases of COVID-19, according to the cut dated November 4.

This morning, at the Los Ceibos hospital (IESS) there were dozens of people waiting for news of their relatives outside the Emergency area.

Older adults attend vaccination centers in various provinces of Ecuador to receive booster doses of the COVID-19 vaccine

Some workers said that demand for health care increased this week as the holiday ended. Cases of all kinds arrived: suspected of COVID-19, as well as emergencies due to heart attacks, serious stomach complications, poisonings, among others.

In social networks, messages from citizens asking for certain drugs that are used in cases of patients with COVID-19 were also seen again.

The increase in patients infected with the virus has been evident even weeks ago. Doctors consulted say that after the October 9 holiday, more cases of COVID-19 began to arrive, both from unvaccinated people and from those already inoculated.

Only in the IESS, in the last seven days there has been an increase of 48% in patients who have reached Hospitalization and of 10.64% in the case of those who have required ICU, according to the figures of availability and occupation of beds in the 24 IESS hospitals, according to the reports of October 26 and November 4 of this year.

Doctors call on the population not to neglect biosafety measures, such as the use of a mask, physical distance, hand washing, disinfection with alcohol, as well as avoiding crowds or being in environments where people do not use masks, Well, the pandemic is not over yet and there are cases of people vaccinated with the two doses who have died from complications in their health after being infected with COVID-19, they say. (I)