Source: The Truth
As an extreme measure, the caretaker of the health center stands guard at the door to divert patients to Los Arcos hospital
Some patients are desperate in the emergency room of the health center of San Pedro del Pinatar, when the only available doctor has had to go out to attend a home emergency. Others go to the Los Arcos hospital, and not a few leave their claims in writing. «We send them to the Management of the Murcian Health Service, but we do not know anything again and, of course, we do not receive the second emergency team that solves the problem,» explains a doctor from the health center, who avoids giving his name because «The last coordinator was set aside for telling what was happening».
It is not new that ER has only a doctor and a nurse, who have to take care of patients who arrive with problems and, in addition, external emergencies. The collapse of the service has been going on for years, but since last February 21 the malaise is even greater, because the mayor, Visitación Martínez, together with the councilor spokeswoman, Noelia Arroyo, announced «the immediate incorporation of the second SUAP -service of primary care emergencies – from the next weekend »for Saturdays and Sundays, and they are still waiting for it. «It never arrived», confirm the emergency health workers.
They say that they only count, since last January and as usual, with the reinforcement of the flu campaign, made up of another doctor and another nurse during some hours on weekends. «They are here from three in the afternoon to ten at night on Saturdays, and from ten in the morning to ten at night on Sundays, but they leave us alone all morning, which is when there is usually more pressure, from usual cases to intoxications ethyl, «they explain.
When they have an exit notice, as an extreme measure they leave the guard on duty at the door, which diverts the most serious patients to the hospital. «It is a terrible stress, which leads us to do everything running and destroys us psychologically,» explains one of the doctors. They have already lost count of the writings sent to ask for a solution.
Patients at risk
What worries them most is that «there may be patients who pay for it with their lives, if they arrive with a heart attack or an allergic reaction and we are out.» Users not only leave their complaint in writing. They also share it on social networks. «I told it in real time one dawn last November because I arrived with an allergy that caused inflammation and there was no doctor, but in the room 15 people were waiting, three of them children under 5 years old and with a fever», says Jorge Vera . Jonatan Garcia has not forgotten the afternoon when he waited for the doctor’s return. «He arrived at two hours, but coincided with a man with a heart attack, so they put him in the ambulance and they left again,» says the young man.
Carlos López had a hard time going to the hospital on his own with severe abdominal pain, after waiting an hour and a half for the doctor at the health center. «When you enter, they tell you that there is no doctor and that nobody knows when he will return, so you can decide what to do», the user says. If there is no other warning when the ambulance returns, the health team finds the room full of angry patients.
For the spokesman of the PSOE, José Lorenzo Martínez, «deceive and lie to avoid reality, that never came the second SUAP they promised and that they have also removed the interpreter from Arabic, which makes the work of the staff difficult». «You can not fill everything gray cement as an alternative to quality health services,» criticizes the Socialist spokesman.
According to the municipal spokesman of Cs, José Luis Ros, «qualifying a reinforcement of 19 hours a week as a second SUAP is the most clamorous political lie of the legislature, and therefore they must assume responsibilities.»
Explanations of Counseling
The mayor defends that «the reinforcement of the flu has been left by the commitment of the regional government.» «We need a second stable SUAP, but for the moment the other resources in the area have orders to attend to the home notices,» he said, referring to the San Javier ambulance, which in practice does not deal with emergencies in the neighboring municipality, confirm in the center of San Pedro. Health indicates that patients «have the HEU of San Javier and a hospital with emergency service less than 15 minutes