Emergency services in the de-escalation of the health crisis due to COVID-19

perspectivas8_pastor

Abstract

The health crisis that we are experiencing in recent months in our country, as in other countries around us, is unprecedented. The reason is that COVID-19 has put stress on the health system that has revealed notable deficiencies at all levels, but especially in acute hospitals (inpatient beds, care points for critical patients and response capacity of the Emergency Services) and in health care in residential settings for the elderly. Regarding primary care, a large part of its professionals have dedicated themselves to reinforcing hospital care, both in field hospitals and in sanitized hotels, in addition to maintaining part of their activity, detecting and following cases of COVID-19. In the coming months, the difficulty of recovering its activity will also become evident, while they try to control that no outbreaks occur. No one is aware that the Spanish health system, to which all the benefits are attributed, has been enormously stressed for years. Do we have to settle with the idea that we always appear in the different classifications as one of the best systems in the world, while we see surgical waiting lists grow, or while we have breakfast all winter with the photographs in the newspapers of patients in the corridors of the Emergency Services, or while they give us an appointment in primary care for the following week or the other? The question is rhetorical and I would like to focus especially on the Emergency Services, due to the important involvement they have had in this crisis and because it is essential to act on them, not only in this de-escalation phase, but on the problems that have made their situation unsustainable for years.