Since last Tuesday evening, after the floods in the province of Valencia and the worst disaster in Europe, the La Fe Hospital in Valencia began to receive a type of patients that was repeated in the following hours. Official reports from the Generalitat only speak of missing or deceased people. But are there any injuries? Yes, and many of them, the most serious, found themselves this week in La Fe, because it is the hospital closest to point zero of the catastrophe.
The majority, due to significant fractures after trying to escape or due to impact from objects and the force of the water. According to hospital sources, others arrived with very developed and infected wounds: the mud is a source of bacteria and the situation was aggravated by the fact that many patients were unable to consult any doctor in the first hours, until the disease level is reached. waters. When they arrived, they had to undergo surgery and antibiotics. If in a normal day there are 4 or 5 hospital admissions, after the overflow there were 22 surgical admissions. In recent days, a new type of patient has also been arriving: volunteers who went to help remove mud and who arrive with bruises or fractures, according to internal sources.
The Ministry of Health tells elDiario.es that in La Fe there is no collapse – although this possibility was included in a report from the firefighters of the Coordination Center – and that there is 100 free beds. But the hospital is preparing for “difficult weeks,” as it warned in a letter to its staff. The reason is that, like almost everyone else in the capital, they have workers affected by the floods, on sick leave, who have lost everything or who cannot get to the hospital. Faced with this situation, it matters and demands maximum activity from those who are incorporated.
Management also urges health workers to “accelerate the discharge of hospitalized patients who can be transferred to their homes to free up hospital beds.” The problem is that those who came from South Horta, the epicenter of misfortune and where 200,000 people live, often have no home to return to. For them it is stated that they should be “relocated with family members or friends and, if this is not possible, a consultation with social work should be carried out”. The email states that pharmaceutical and emergency services are already organized and asks health workers and administrative staff to collaborate across different services “for the care of these people.”
