The medical personnel of the Regional Hospital of ISSSTE in Mexico City protested this Monday against the lack of protective equipment and false reporting of COVID-19.
“They did not make the appropriate testing, they made up the diagnoses. They were managing people as respiratory distress, influenza and typical pneumonia. Now there are a lot of staff infected,” said nurse María Doris López in an interview with EFE.
López revealed the death by coronavirus of “a colleague who worked without protection in the emergency department”, in addition to the spread of the virus to a surgeon and several health workers on the afternoon shift in the hospital attached to the Institute of Security and Social Services of State Workers (ISSSTE).
The hospital was one of those chosen by the Government of Mexico City to specialize in the treatment of COVID-19, a disease that so far has left 296 dead and 4,661 patients in the country.
“They know we have nothing to work with and they declare the hospital as a COVID hospital last Wednesday,” the nurse was outraged before showing the cameras a plastic briefcase turned into a screen they were given to work.”
The staff argues that there are no N95 type masks anywhere in the country. The nursing staff had to buy out of pocket and are getting them via the internet according to the nurse.
Specialists from the National Autonomous University of Mexico ( UNAM ) assured that the epidemic due to COVID-19 has spread throughout the country but the cases have not been properly registered, since they present as acute respiratory infection (ARI).
In a statement, members of the institution’s Scientific Research Coordination (CIC) said that in recent weeks there has been a “continuous increase” in ARI cases .
“This trend does not correspond to any seasonal pattern and in the context of the SARS-VOC-2 pandemic it must be assumed that it represents the extent of the infection in the population,” concludes the analysis carried out by the specialists.
According to the analysis, in the last week there has been an increase of more than 150,000 cases of ARIs in the country compared to the average of previous years.
According to the analysis of the CIC of UNAM, the notable increase in registered cases constitutes indirect evidence of the true level of the extent of COVID-19 in Mexico.
As of Monday in Mexico, the official number of COVID-19 cases was 4,661, with a total of 296 deaths.
However, citizens on social networks have questioned this figure, arguing that many of the cases have been registered as atypical pneumonias in some way “masking” the actual cases of COVID-19.
In addition, last week, the undersecretary of Prevention and Health Promotion, Hugo López-Gatell, accepted that the total number of cases could be at least eight times greater according to the so-called sentinel model, which estimates possible cases and is used by the World Health Organization (WHO).
