LISBON (Reuters) – Portugal’s public health system is on the verge of collapse as hospitals in the areas worst affected by a worrying increase in coronavirus cases are rapidly running out of intensive care around COVID-19 patients to treat.
“Our health care system is under a state of extreme pressure,” Health Minister Marta Temido told reporters on Sunday afternoon after a visit to a struggling hospital. “There is a limit and we are very close to it.”
The healthcare system, which before the pandemic had the lowest number of critical care beds per 100,000 inhabitants in Europe, can accommodate a maximum of 672 COVID-19 patients in intensive care units or ICUs, according to the Ministry of Health.
According to the health authority DGS, Sunday reached 647 people on ICUs with COVID-19. The Portuguese Association of Hospital Administrators said the number of coronavirus patients in need of hospitalization is likely to increase dramatically next week.
Three days after a nationwide exclusion, the country of only 10 million people on Sunday reported 10,385 new cases and 152 deaths, bringing the total number of infections to 549,801, with the death toll to 8,861.
According to the website ourworldindata.org, which is supported by the University of Oxford, Portugal has had the highest number of coronavirus cases per capita in the last seven days.
Most new cases are concentrated in Lisbon, where many patients in the city’s public hospitals have already been transferred elsewhere, including to health units in the country’s second largest city, Porto.
“We are already treating patients beyond our installed capacity,” said Daniel Ferro, director of the largest hospital in Lisbon, Santa Maria. “And we are not the only hospital where this is happening.”
The Garcia de Orta Hospital, across the Tagus River from Lisbon, said in a statement that the hospital could soon enter a “pre-disaster” phase as it no longer has beds for coronavirus patients.
Reporting by Catarina Demony; Edited by Jonathan Oatis