MercoPress, en Español

Montevideo, March 19th 2024 - 06:38 UTC

 

 

Falklands warn of difficulties in medical evacuation to Chile and Uruguay

Friday, April 2nd 2021 - 10:05 UTC
Full article 10 comments
A source from the British Hospital of Montevideo confirmed MercoPress that the Medical Director will have to decide on a case by case basis to admit a critical care patient A source from the British Hospital of Montevideo confirmed MercoPress that the Medical Director will have to decide on a case by case basis to admit a critical care patient

The Falkland Islands Government has urged people in the islands to “take extra care” in undertaking high-risk activities due to the Covid-19 situation in Chile and Uruguay making it “extremely difficult” to arrange the medical evacuation from the Falklands.

In a statement released on Wednesday, the islands’ Chief Medical Officer, Dr Beccy Edwards, said: “As cases of Covid-19 continue to surge in South America, it is severely impacting on our ability to get people out of the Islands for the critical care and treatment that they may need.”

“Anything the public can do to help reduce the demand for [medical evacuation] services really helps the King Edward Memorial Hospital and the hospitals we work with in Chile and Uruguay in particular,” concluded Edwards.

Former Director of the British Hospital of Montevideo, Dr Jorge C Stanham (R) OBE, confirmed MercoPress that the Hospital's Medical Directorate will have to decide on a case by case basis the ability to admit a critical care patient evacuated from the Falkland Islands

The British Hospital specifically and the Uruguayan health system in general are facing a situation of severe strain on their critical care systems, the source informed. Recent daily cases have peaked at 2500-3000 and may increase further.

 

The statement from Edwards comes as daily Covid-19 cases in Uruguay reached a new daily high of 35 deaths on Thursday and 3,088 new cases on Wednesday. In Chile, officials announced a month-long closure of the country’s borders on Thursday to prevent the entry of new Covid-19 variants and halt the spread of the virus.

However, Uruguay managed to position itself in the last few hours as the country with the highest rate of vaccination against covid-19 among those with more than one million inhabitants.

Uruguay reached that mark by reaching 1.04 daily doses per 100 people applied - on average - in the last seven days, and thus surpassed the United Arab Emirates, which with 1.02 was in first place, according to the World in Data platform ranking. On 28 March, the country had already overtaken Chile, the other Latin American country on the world podium, with an average of 0.93.

 

Top Comments

Disclaimer & comment rules
  • Papa

    HansF Paraguay is also worsening; Bolivia does not have reliable data and Brazil has no more beds in ICUs in most states... https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus
    Chile and Uruguay have been trusted destinations for Falklands' medical evacuations for decades.

    Apr 02nd, 2021 - 10:36 am +1
  • HansF

    If Uruguay and Chile are not available as medevac destinations, Bolivia, Paraguay, Brazil or even South Africa could be (perhaps) viable alternatives

    Apr 02nd, 2021 - 10:26 am 0
  • Chicureo

    Despite what my government is saying about a crisis — well over 8% of the critical care beds in our hospitals/clinics are empty — and they’re just frightened about a anticipated surge. (The top private clinics here (such as Clínica Las Condes and Clínica Alemana are with even higher capacity)

    This is ‘National Groundhog’s Day’ that we experienced on last year’s Easter weekend!

    Best wishes to all for this Holy weekend!

    Apr 02nd, 2021 - 02:43 pm 0
Read all comments

Commenting for this story is now closed.
If you have a Facebook account, become a fan and comment on our Facebook Page!