RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) – Reports appear of Brazilian health workers being forced to intubate patients without the help of sedatives, following weeks of warnings that hospitals and state governments are in danger of running out of critical medicine.
One doctor at the Albert Schweitzer Municipal Hospital in Rio de Janeiro told the Associated Press that health workers have been diluting sedatives for days to make their supplies last longer. Once it ran out, nurses and doctors had to start using neuromuscular blockers and attaching patients to their beds, the doctor said.
“You relax the muscles and do the procedure easily, but we have no sedation,” the doctor said. He agreed to discuss the sensitive situation only if it is not quoted by name. “Some try to speak, resist. They are aware. ”
Lack of needed medicine is the latest pandemic problem facing Brazil, with a brutal outbreak of COVID-19 flooding the country’s intensive care units. The daily death rate averages about 3,000, making up a quarter of the deaths worldwide and making Brazil the center of the pandemic.
“Intubation kits” contain anesthetics, sedatives, and other medications used to place seriously ill patients on ventilators. The press office of the Rio City Health Secretariat said in an email that from time to time a shortage of the Albert Schweitzer facility is due to the acquisition of supplies on the world market, and that ‘replacements are being made so that no damage is not to the aid. ‘ It does not comment on the need to tie patients to beds.
The newspaper O Globo reported on Thursday about similar trials in several other hospitals in the metropolitan region of Rio, with people desperately calling for other facilities to seek sedatives for their loved ones.
It is unclear whether the problem seen in Rio remains an isolated case, but others are sounding the alarm about looming shortages.
Sao Paulo’s health secretary, Jean Carlo Gorinchteyn, told a news conference on Wednesday that the situation was dire in hospitals in the Brazilian population. On Thursday, more than 640 hospitals were on the verge of collapse, with a shortage within days, officials said.
“We need the federal government’s support,” Gorinchteyn said. ‘This is not a necessity for Sao Paulo; it is a necessity for the whole country. ”
Its state health officials have sent nine requests for intubation drugs to the Ministry of Health over the past 40 days, according to a statement on Wednesday. His latest delivery was enough to cover just 6% of the monthly needs in the state’s public health network, officials told AP.
Federal Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga, who took over the post last month, said on Wednesday that a consignment of sedatives is expected to arrive in Brazil in the next ten days. This is the result of a contract signed with the Pan American Health Organization.
He said two separate attempts to procure medicines on the international market were underway to end this daily struggle.
The ministry also had logistical restrictions for many weeks to deliver oxygen to hospitals across the country. Queiroga said it remains a daily concern. ″
A more contagious coronavirus variant, known as P.1, is spreading in Brazil this year. It can also be more aggressive than the original strain, and health workers have reported that patients need much more oxygen than last year.
The private sector has increased to address part of the supply shortage. A group of seven large companies donated 3.4 million doses of intubation drugs – enough for the management of 500 beds for six weeks – to the Ministry of Health.
A first group of 2.3 million would arrive at Sao Paulo’s international airport from China late Thursday and would be dispersed with critical shortages to states, the ministry said in an email in response to AP questions about the supply bottlenecks.
Last month, the Ministry of Health requested intubation medicine from laboratories, reportedly as a way to distribute to the most needy hospitals. This has reduced the stock of other facilities, said Edson Rogatti, director of an association of more than 2,000 hospitals nationwide.
“If we run out, the healthcare sector will be in chaos,” Rogatti told Globo News TV.
Deficits are not limited to the public sector. The private hospital association in Brazil on Thursday published a survey in which nine of 71 institutions reported having stocks for five days or less. About half said they were enough for a week.
Private facilities want to import medicines from India but have yet to give approval, the association told AP.
The city of Itaiopolis in the south of the state of Santa Catarina reported shortages of sedatives and oxygen this week. The neighboring state of Rio Grande do Sul also reported that supplies were running low.
“The situation is desperate,” Rio Grande do Sul health secretary Arita Bergmann said in a statement on Thursday. “We urgently need the Ministry of Health to replenish hospitals’ supplies, otherwise intubation patients can wake up without medication, and that would be terrible.”