It is blood gas equipment. It allows the diagnosis, among others, of respiratory insufficiencies, severe dehydration, or the follow-up of patients with dialysis emergencies in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of Dr. Ernesto Guevara de la Serna General Teaching Hospital, in the province of Las Tunas. This, like other equipment, is limited in its value in use due to the lack of reagents or spare parts.
Las Tunas, Cuba.- “As a result of the economic, commercial and financial blockade against Cuba, public health has been depressed in terms of the acquisition of different resources for the assistance our people deserve. It affects us in medicines, especially cytostatic serums, and prevents us from giving adequate treatment with the latest modern care schemes used in other parts of the world; we cannot use them or we have to resort to old schemes that do not give the same result.
"Sometimes, we cannot perform some tests, because it has been impossible to buy the necessary reagents, as it should be if this fence did not exist," explains Dr. Rogelio Pérez Rivero, deputy director of Diagnostic and Therapeutic Means of that healthcare center.
“We have difficulties with medical supplies, which are limiting surgeries. We have been forced to do only the emergency and oncological ones; but in the latter case, not all the patients who are waiting to undergo surgery, because we do not have the necessary resources.
"Why? Those companies that sold us can no longer do so and, sometimes, we have to acquire them by third and even fourth countries, which make them more expensive. We are talking about anesthetics, muscle relaxants, central venous catheters. , the sutures with which these surgical interventions are made, the tape," he says.
The specialist reports that the situation also limits the availability of radiographic material or other laboratory reagents, and even enzymatic detergents for disinfection.
"Despite all these shortcomings and limitations that we have, our workers are being creative, they are putting soul, heart, and life to give the best care to patients, for whom we work every day," concludes the manager.
Days of daily challenges for the well-being and health of a people.
