The ambulance picked up the virus – Newspaper Kommersant No. 237 (7438) of 12/21/2022
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Due to the record incidence of acute respiratory viral infections in a number of regions of the Russian Federation, the load on the ambulance service has doubled, Kommersant found out. The industry, doctors say, operates “in conditions of shortage of personnel,” while the doctors themselves suffer from the outbreak of the virus no less than their patients. To make up for the losses, in the Kursk region, medical workers are called in from vacations and weekends are canceled, while in the Sverdlovsk region, students and even disaster medicine teams are attracted. In other subjects, doctors have to work overtime and go out of their shifts to replace colleagues.
Over the past week, the incidence of acute respiratory viral infections (ARVI) and influenza in Russia increased by 15.8%, Rospotrebnadzor reported on Tuesday. A week earlier, the growth was 35%. In some regions, the figures are even higher. Thus, the incidence of influenza in St. Petersburg over the past seven days has increased by 104%, and the incidence of coronavirus by 20%, said Irina Kataeva, head of the epidemiological surveillance department of the regional department of Rospotrebnadzor.
A record incidence of SARS is recorded in the Sverdlovsk region. There, from December 12 to 18, more than 74.4 thousand people fell ill in the region, which is 120% higher than the average long-term level. At the same time, 52% of the patients are children. As a result, over the past two weeks, the number of ambulance calls has increased by at least 45%, the number of emergency visits by 34%. And the number of brigades, on the contrary, decreased due to illnesses of health workers. To make up for the losses, medical institutions attract medical students and even visiting teams of the territorial center for disaster medicine.
The Ministry of Health of the Kursk Region previously reported that due to a twofold increase in the number of ambulance calls, employees had to be recalled from vacations and cancel their days off.
In the Novosibirsk region on December 12, 16,000 house calls were registered for doctors, while 7,000 are usually recorded. The vast majority of them are due to viral diseases. The number of calls to the control room “103” about the high temperature has quadrupled. Therefore, since last week, the polyclinics of the region have been transferred to 12-hour work, seven days a week.
The head of the department of Rospotrebnadzor for the Krasnoyarsk Territory, Dmitry Goryaev, reported that from December 5 to 11, about 19 thousand inhabitants of the region fell ill with ARVI – 673 people more than a week earlier. The chief epidemiologist of the region, Natalya Bakhareva, admitted that the waiting time for an ambulance had increased to three hours because of this. She, however, assured that this does not apply to “life-threatening and emergency conditions.”
In the Stavropol Territory over the past two weeks, the number of ambulance calls has almost doubled: according to the regional ambulance station, instead of the usual 400-450 to 900 calls per day. Almost half of them are children with high fever. Of the 40 ambulances in Stavropol, 26 are now functioning, although back in August there were 34 brigades. Some of the doctors went on vacation, others quit after the coronavirus payments were canceled. The remaining ambulance workers had to work overtime and go off shift. The Ministry of Health of the Territory decided to extend the time for receiving patients until 20 pm in multidisciplinary institutions, and the children’s ambulance will now work on weekends.
The press service of the administration of the Leningrad Region reported to Kommersant that due to the increase in the incidence of influenza and SARS, the load on the outpatient link has increased by about two times, and in some localities – more than three times. The ambulance workload has also doubled on average. “The healthcare industry in the Leningrad Region, as well as in the Russian Federation as a whole, operates in conditions of an acute shortage of personnel. The deficit is exacerbated, among other things, by the increased incidence of SARS, which is also recorded among medical workers, ”the press service added. They clarified that “in the current conditions” the heads of medical organizations are redistributing the load in favor of the outpatient link, including involving doctors and paramedical workers from other departments.
The St. Petersburg Health Committee told Kommersant that the number 03 usually receives 6-7 thousand calls per day, now it reaches 10 thousand. The flow of patients to polyclinics also doubled in the first two weeks of December. “In general, the number of patients on outpatient treatment with colds is now about 40 thousand, which is about three times less than during the Omicron period in February 2022. Therefore, the conclusion is as follows: the outpatient link copes with the current workload and we do not observe complaints about delays in the provision of medical care, ”the Komzdrav assured. At the same time, they emphasized that for the first time St. Petersburg faced “such a high hospitalization of children” – up to 200 people a day.
Lev Averbakh, CEO and chief physician of the Coris private ambulance, also speaks of an approximately two-fold increase in calls. “The ambulance is now very busy. We work for wear and tear, with delays, with queues. There is no direct shortage of doctors, but the staff is also sick, ”he emphasizes. Among the main reasons for the trips, Mr. Averbakh calls ARVI, mild flu and “flu-like” diseases: “But the temperatures are very high, people are afraid and call for help.”
Dmitry Belyakov, chairman of the independent trade union of ambulance workers Feldsher.ru, claims that the workload on the ambulance did not increase during the epidemic, as “they simply have nowhere to grow further.” According to him, there are not enough employees for a long time, since the “optimization of the work of the ambulance” began. As a result, not only in the regions, but also in Moscow, brigades make 24 calls a day, and people are forced to wait for an ambulance for several hours. However, Mr. Belyakov notes that among the reasons for the high workload is not only the shortage of personnel: “People were taught to call an ambulance for every sneeze, and besides, due to the shortage of polyclinic doctors, their work was also put on teams.”
It should be noted that at the end of November, Minister of Health Mikhail Murashko said that the shortage of doctors in Russia is about 25-26 thousand people, about 50 thousand nurses. The minister described it as “uncritical, but important.”
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