Beginning Over, 2. Public Health Abandoned.

This new year is starting off the way last year ended, with illness everywhere. The good of it, is that most people are now vaccinated. The bad of it, is that the Omicron variant is now dominant, guaranteeing exploding contagion, even if most of it doesn't end up in the hospital. The further bad of it, is that after two years, we still haven't shored up our health system to withstand the shock.

With the incredible numbers going up, we've been left more or less on our own. Protocall has changed, and I really have no idea what to do anymore if I suspect I've come down with Covid. Buy an antigen test at a pharmacy (if they have any)? Call my GP (if he or she answers)? Search for a special number that I have heard talked about (if it's still working)? Protocalls have changed because pharmacies can't keep enough antigen test kits on hand, and the labs are overwhelmed with the number of PCR's sent to test. Of course, knowing that Omicron was coming, nothing was done to hire more personnel, nor make sure enough antigen tests would be available.

I have already complained about our GP clinic, how doctors on sick leave or on vacation are not replaced by a substitute anymore. Well, various GP clinics in towns and neighborhoods in the Vigo area are cancelling appointments already on the books, and attending only Covid positive and emergency patients. Everyone else has to wait until later in the month, if not even later. That is because our clinic isn't the only one not substituting doctors. But, of course, it's better for the patients to stay home (or clog up the hospital Emergency Room), rather than for the regional government to actually hire more doctors with decent contracts. It's too expensive for the public coffers. Well, we'll see just how expensive it becomes to have fewer doctors.

But it's not just the doctors. I saw a rant on Facebook today by someone from this township. This person is working in Switzerland, but is here for the Christmas holidays. But, his sister and brother-in-law have come down with Covid. Last night, they had to call an ambulance, because the brother-in-law, asthmatic, had difficulty breathing and had a high fever. At eight in the evening, he was picked up and taken to the hospital in Santiago. At practically midnight, the brother-in-law called home, saying that the doctors were discharging him because all the tests were optimal. But someone from home had to come pick him up because they wouldn't take him back in the ambulance that had taken him out. 

The person writing the rant said that he and his wife, driving two cars, went up to the hospital, intending to leave one for the brother-in-law to drive back, since the sister was too sick to drive. But, when he got there, his brother-in-law was having an anxiety attack and was very dizzy. The person starting shouting and calling out the doctors and nurses for claiming the patient could go home in the state he was in. The E.R. doctors took him back in, to run further tests. At this point, the writer explains that, despite the anger he had been showing, all the people in attendance in the hospital E.R. were treating both of them kindly and well. He calmed down and started conversing with them. 

It turned out that the brother-in-law couldn't go back in the ambulance that had brought him up, because there were only two ambulances in the entire area covered by the hospital of Santiago de Compostela (CHUS - Complexo Hospitalario Universitario de Santiago) last night. Two ambulances to cover well over a hundred square kilometers. Those ambulances not only had to bring in patients like his brother-in-law, but also attend to any accidents there might have been with wounded of any kind, as well as other medical emergencies. Two ambulances at a moment when pandemic numbers are off the charts, it's raining, and it's the holidays, all instances that call for more back up than just two ambulances. I'll leave a link here to the original post. It's in Galician, though not too difficult to understand by someone who speaks Castillian Spanish. 

Public health is extremely important, yet it is being treated by the conservative regional government as if it is a privilege not everyone has a right to use. The next time we vote, we should remember that this government has been quietly dismantling a public service that is vital to our lives.

Life continues.