US, WASHINGTON (ORDO NEWS) — Hospitals, doctors, nurses and the modern healthcare system are trying to counter the new pandemic of the coronavirus covid-19 infection, but the global healthcare sector is not coping with the situation. Are there any solutions?
A new coronavirus infection has affected all world health systems, so people suffering from other diseases are trying to be treated at home.
Currently, all health resources are directed to the fight against coronavirus, which has affected the treatment of other diseases that require medical procedures such as blood transfusion, chemotherapy, or even medical examination.
According to The New York Times, the coronavirus pandemic adversely affected all health sectors, including medical services for cancer patients, organ transplants, and brain surgery.
Since many patients are hospitalized with complications of coronavirus, surgical units are converted into intensive care units, and surgeons treat people with breathing problems.
Moreover, if there is room for other patients, medical centers will only accept them if absolutely necessary, because they are afraid that medical workers may become infected with coronavirus.
In addition, the patients themselves do not want to go to the hospital, even if they are really sick, because they are afraid to catch a coronavirus infection. People do not report serious symptoms associated with other diseases, so they are not hospitalized. This leads to the fact that they develop complications, but they still do not report them until it is too late.
Many hospitals have suspended planned operations and procedures, such as, for example, surgery on the knee joints and others. But the problem is that now it is difficult to determine which operation can be postponed and which not. Unfortunately, delayed treatment can lead to permanent disability of the patient in case of refusal to carry out the necessary operation.
Crayfish
Delaying treatment is especially dangerous for people with cancer. Moreover, this contradicts the long-standing statements of the World Health Organization (WHO), which calls for cancer treatment as early as possible, before the condition worsens.
Nevertheless, in connection with the coronavirus infection pandemic, doctors say that they are trying to provide treatment for the most serious oncological diseases, not only in order to preserve the medical resources depleted by the long-term struggle with coronavirus, but also to protect the cancer patients themselves who are in high risk for coronavirus.
In America, for example, almost one in four cancer patients reported delays in the provision of medical care due to the covid-19 coronavirus pandemic. This is a survey conducted by the American Cancer Network Against Cancer.
Even among patients with coronavirus
Pressure on the health care system negatively affects even those with coronavirus. Doctors have to choose who to connect to the ventilators and give a chance at life, and to whom to die.
Doctors are guided by criteria such as age, state of health, life expectancy and others to determine which patients will be given priority if mechanical ventilation devices are not enough.
This suggests that there were cases when the doctor could save the patients, but did not do this, which led to deaths that could have been prevented.
What are the solutions?
While we are studying coronavirus, in order to learn more about NTV, it is necessary to reduce the burden on intensive care units and hospitals as much as possible in order to make room for other patients.
Solutions to the problem:
1. To create a vaccine that promotes the development of immunity to coronavirus so that people no longer become infected, or if they still get covid-19, then the disease proceeds in a mild form and does not require hospitalization. This will significantly reduce the burden on hospitals and medical centers.
More than 100 potential vaccines are currently being developed, many of which are already undergoing clinical trials. However, experts emphasize the difficulty of finding an effective vaccine against coronavirus infection.
2. Find a medicine that will facilitate the treatment of patients with coronavirus or reduce the risk of complications. If you manage to create such a medicine, then the need for mechanical ventilation devices will significantly decrease, which will free up space in hospitals for other patients.
There is currently no cure for coronavirus infection, but there are experimental treatments that have yielded some positive results.
3. Continue quarantine policies to reduce the number of infected people and reduce pressure on health systems.
4. Gradually remove restrictions in order to develop collective immunity. The idea is that if you catch a new disease, such as a coronavirus infection, and it does not yet have a vaccine, and it is actively spreading among the population, then if enough people develop immunity to the disease, the mass spread of the infection will stop, even if not the whole population has developed immunity.
Collective immunity from coronavirus will only form if a large part of the population from 60 to 70% is ill with this disease, and then recovers.
Public health experts say you need to be prepared for new outbreaks of coronavirus infection. “We need to understand that it will take some time to get out of this pandemic,” said Maria Van Kerkhov, an epidemiologist at the World Health Organization.
5. It is necessary to understand the mechanism of action of coronavirus. Why do some people die, while others do not even experience a mild headache? The answer to this question will help doctors find the right treatment in each individual case.
Currently, British researchers are trying to study the DNA of patients with covid-19 to answer this question. They will sequence the genetic code of people who are seriously ill with covid-19, and compare their genomes with those who have a mild infection or have not been infected at all.
In the search for specific genes that can cause a predisposition to the disease, up to 20 thousand patients will be involved in intensive care wards or who have recently left them.
“We think that there are clues in the genome that will help us understand how this disease kills people,” said Kenneth Bailey, an intensive care unit doctor at Edinburgh University.
—
Online:
Contact us: [email protected]
Our Standards, Terms of Use: Standard Terms And Conditions.