DAY 36: Another day ahead of us

Dear Colleagues, 

The number of Covid19 patients in Sanitas Hospitals is clearly following a downward trend: on Friday the figure had dropped to 200 and the number of people in intensive care had also dropped to 36 when not long ago that number had been 72.  In the last 4 days, we have only had one patient referred to us through the public system, which was to Sanitas Hospital CIMA in Barcelona.   The medical teams have set to work on designing the protocols we will need to establish to create Covid and non-Covid circuits, and our hospitals are being adapted to implement these separated areas.  This leads us to look forward to resuming our normal activity soon.     

The same trend is being reported throughout Sanitas’ hospital network as well. We still have 226 patients with Covid19 admitted to third party hospitals, a figure that is much better than the almost 500 we were reporting not long ago. These numbers are rapidly going down pointing to a brighter future there too, which is great news. 

Sanitas Mayores has had complete confinement conditions in place for over 20 days now, with each resident staying in their own room.  This is a tough measure but one which is helping to give positive results: nearly 100 of our elderly have recovered from the virus. In the meantime, and although test results have confirmed 400 positive cases, the clinical situation remains stable. We hope that this strict confinement will reap rewards shortly and that the number of people infected will drop significantly as our residents overcome the virus.   Supplies are guaranteed for the coming weeks, so our focus is now on supporting staff during their recovery and assisting them back to work. 

The media attention on care homes at the moment is very intense, and there is tremendous scrutiny of the sector.  In this context, I would like to remind you of our position: where there are cases of negligence, they should be treated in a decisive and firm manner. However, we do not accept the demonization of a whole sector that has taken on an important role in the fight against Covid19 and which has made huge commitments both in terms of human and financial resources. This sector has had to assume a role it was never designed for: care homes have been established to care for our elders, not to treat them medically. And yet, this is exactly what the staff has been required to do over these past few weeks.   We are tremendously proud of our teams in Sanitas Mayores; people who are saving lives everyday thanks to their dedication and the fact that we have been able to medicalise our care homes in record time.   

Last Friday I told you that today I would give you a general overview of the new trends that are emerging in the health sector as a result of the Covid19 emergency. I will leave those until tomorrow so as not to make this post too long.  

Before signing off, a few words of encouragement to those of you who have confessed that, like me, you find the days following the announcement of a lockdown extension a little harder.  Let’s not forget everything that we have achieved so far, which has been so, so much.   In fact, if you think about it, the larger part of the confinement period is behind us. Let’s be encouraged by how other western countries have started to come out of confinement and start thinking about how we too will come out soon.  From a medical point of view, it seems to make sense to enter a new phase and start relaxing confinement measures.  So, I encourage you to take heart! This is almost over.    

My best wishes to all for a great week ahead. Let’s keep up the good work. 

#Proud #ApplauseforourHealthcareProfessionals 

#ApplauseForourITTeams #TogetherWeWillBeatCovid19