Calls for responsibility
The Romanian health ministry and hospital managers reiterate their calls for responsibility to all citizens
Ştefan Stoica, 05.04.2021, 14:08
The pandemic affects a growing number of young people, without previous illnesses, including children, and the priority of all authorities is to save lives, the health minister Vlad Voiculescu said. In his latest public statement, he made a point of being joined by the managers of important hospitals in Bucharest, to emphasise that without citizen responsibility, the situation threatens to become critical. The new wave of the Covid -19 pandemic is overwhelming in terms of contamination rates and of its capacity to affect categories of people that seemed less vulnerable to the virus before.
Vlad Voiculescu: “As you may remember, in the beginning of this crisis when we talked about a patient we used to list his previous illnesses. We knew that this virus would affect people with comorbidities. Well, now we see healthy people not only in need of hospitalisation, but struggling with severe forms of the disease. And we see children getting sick. Of the total number of patients with critical forms, over one-third are intubated, unlike in the first stages of the pandemic, when the proportion of severe and critical forms was significantly lower.
Physician Andreea Moldovan, secretary of state with the health ministry, said the number of SARS-CoV-2 infections among children under 10 years of age is growing. She emphasised the importance of compliance with protection measures during childrens common activities.
Minister Voiculescu announced a number of measures, including an increase in the number of beds in ICUs. The health ministry also intends to reduce the pressure on intensive care units by referring cases to hospitals that have not provided emergency services so far. Hospital managers reiterated what reasonable people, who do not fall for conspiracy theories and fake news, already know: the healthcare system is overburdened and the staff are exhausted. The chief of the Bucharest Emergency Rescue Services intensive care unit, Bogdan Opriţa, insisted that people must cooperate and get vaccines.
Bogdan Opriţa: “If the number of patients grows any further, we may run out of ICU beds, equipped with oxygen supplies. Whereas in the second wave some 50% of the patients would have mild forms of the disease and could be discharged, now we can barely discharge 10% of the patients. Most of them need high-flow oxygen. And apart from them there are also the non-COVID patients, we cannot overlook them. The health ministry order makes it very clear that both patient categories must be given proper care, so no matter how many ICU beds we may add, they will eventually fill up. Without cooperation from citizens, no matter how many measures we take, we will not overcome this.
The good news, on the other hand, is that the vaccine rollout continues at a pace that will enable the authorities to meet the goal of having 10 million Romanians immunised by September. (tr. A.M. Popescu)
