A disease is considered chronic when the patient will inevitably have to deal with it for the rest of his life and, to remain stable, treatment must be continuous. patients with these diseases are more vulnerable if hospitals collapse as has happened during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The president of the Ecuador Patients Foundation, Gabriel Orihuela, explains that treatments lose effectiveness if patients stop receiving them for more than two weeks. “They begin to lose adherence to treatment and this, added to not receiving the appropriate medication, causes their quality of life to deteriorate,” he says. This causes more patients to need hospitalization and the risk of death increases.
The first case of infection with the omicron variant was detected in Ecuador in mid-December. In the weeks that followed, the largest wave of infections of the pandemic. However, the number of deaths did not grow with the same intensity. Deaths attributed to COVID-19 were lower than those recorded during the predominance of other variants, according to official figures.
However, the statistics of deaths registered in the Civil Registry show that the omicron impact was greater. EL UNIVERSO analyzed the historical figures to have a photograph of the increase in deaths registered in the omicron wave. He concluded that compared to the years 2018 and 2019, pre-pandemic, this year there have been some 4,500 excess deaths.
Excess mortality is not only due to COVID-19 patients, but also has repercussions on patients with other pathologies who were affected by the collapse of the health system.
For Orihuela, losing the lives of people with comorbidities is very painful. “We try, in some way, to put a shield around ourselves so as not to feel so much frustration every time a patient leaves us. Unfortunately it is reality. Faced with reality, what one has to do is understand it and learn from it to know how it can be modified to improve the quality of life of patients”.
He suggests that what should be done is to make the population aware that health problems belong to everyonenot only of families that currently have a person affected by chronic diseases.
The provinces that registered the highest excess mortality between January and February were Guayas, Manabi, Los Rios and El Oro.
Guayas it was the one that registered the highest number of excess deaths in the last two months: 42 per 100,000 inhabitants.
This was reflected in the statistics of the National Funeral Society. Sebastián Barona, director of this institution, commented that in recent months there have been up to 50 additional deaths in Guayas, regardless of whether the cause of death was due to COVID-19, other pathologies, accidents or violent deaths.
The province with the second highest excess mortality rate was The rivers, which registered 37 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants.
Edmundo Encalada, director of the IESS hospital in Babahoyo, highlighted that in January and February there was evidence of a collapse in the operating units of this medical center due to the pandemic. The main affected, he said, were patients with hypertension, diabetes, heart problems and cancer. Between the last two months, 25 people died with these pathologies in that hospital.
Encalada explained that each pathology is treated differently and that, during the omicron wave, patients with other pathologies could be treated regularly in this medical center. In addition, the hospital itself was prepared for a possible collapse. In the event that there was no space or supplies, patients would have been referred to other medical centers.
Manabi it had 36 excess deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, in January and February, the third highest record in the country.
For the epidemiologist Andrea Gómez, excess deaths are an effect of the pandemic, and reveal that health services in Ecuador have not been able to face COVID-19. He regrets that “it has not been possible to avoid the increase in hospitalizations, serious cases and intensive care, as well as people who died without even having found a bed.”
Orihuela complains that, as COVID-19 has been the priority, There have not been enough beds or doctors to care for patients with comorbidityyes “This has been corrected, but definitely a lot needs to be done,” she commented. (I)
Source: Eluniverso
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