Doctors in Rio de Janeiro said doctors in Brazil who had been hit hard tied COVID-19 patients to their hospital beds before bumping fans down their throats. “I never thought I would go through something like this after 20 years in intensive care,” Aureo do Carmo Filho told Reuters. “The use of mechanical restraints without sedatives is bad practice … the patient is subjected to a form of torture.”
In hospitals where they still have sedatives, health workers have resorted to diluting them to increase supplies or using muscle relaxants to calm patients while intubating. “They are awake, without sedatives, and they jump up, with their hands tied to the bed and beg us not to let them die,” said one nurse.
The appalling acknowledgments come on the heels of Médecins Sans Frontières calling Brazil’s response to the pandemic a ‘humanitarian catastrophe’ that is likely to only worsen in the coming weeks. “I have to be very clear about this: the negligence of the Brazilian authorities is costing lives,” Christos Christou, MSF’s international president, said on Thursday after the death toll in Brazil rose to 362,000.
MSF chief executive Meinie Nicolai blamed Brazilian justice leader Jair Bolsonaro, who, like former US President Donald Trump, downplayed the pandemic and his own battle with COVID-19. or as contagious as science proves it to be.
“There is no coordination in the response. There is no real recognition of the severity of the disease. Science is set aside. “False news is spread and health workers are left alone,” Nicolai said. “The government is failing the Brazilian people. All Brazilians can tell you that they have people around them who are buried or inhabited in places where there are no drugs and no oxygen. This is unacceptable. ”
The lack of medical supplies is accompanied by resistance by government officials to even acknowledge the seriousness of the problem. The P1 variant, first identified in Brazil, has caused international concern and is now being mutated. France has blocked all flights from the country and other countries are now advising all essential trips to the beleagured South American country.
The lack of proper medical supplies is now accompanied by a disastrous vaccination of vaccines based on denial and corruption. Only 12 percent of Brazil’s population has received a first dose of the Chinese vaccine Coronavac, which Chinese officials recently acknowledged is not very effective in preventing people from becoming seriously ill.
Earlier this week, federal prosecutors in the Brazilian state of Roraima opened an investigation after reports emerged that rogue health workers were exchanging doses of the less effective Chinese vaccine, which is mainly offered in the country, for illegal trade. exploit gold. According to Reuters, a lawyer for the indigenous tribes that own the land where the gold is mined said that health workers are vaccinating secret miners under cover of night. “The Yanomami have long complained that materials and medicines intended for indigenous health are being transferred to feral cat miners,” the local leader said in a letter seen by Reuters.
More Brazilians are dying every day than anywhere else in the world. The country recorded 3,500 deaths alone on Thursday. The Brazilian Ministry of Health is currently in talks with Spain and other countries to try to get the necessary supplies to the overwhelming hospitals. Meanwhile, Bolsonaro continues the fight against regional governments that have tried to set up or lock up masks.