After the medical union and the Uruguayan Association for Intensive Medicine (SUMI) expressed concern and ‘surprise’ at the call made by the State Health Services Administration (ASSE) days ago to train personnel working outside of intensive care areas and trained staff, the president of ASSE, Leonardo Cipriani, met representatives from both sectors and promised to join the Faculty of Medicine in training.
“Maybe (the meeting) should have taken place in the beginning,” Cipriani acknowledged at a press conference on Monday after the requested meeting. There, ASSE, the Domestic Medical Federation (FEMI), the Uruguayan Medical Union (SMU) and SUMI agreed to conduct two training sessions that will take more than two lessons. In the first call, ASSE proposed two bodies, one virtual and the other face-to-face. The first through the ASSE training platform, while the second would be present in person at the CTI of an ASSE executive unit.
The planning of the courses will in turn include the private sphere and the Faculty of Medicine will join the coordination, with whom the intensivists, the unions and ASSE have a new meeting next Tuesday.
“We want to assure the population that in the event of a catastrophe scenario, the staff present has the skills and competences to provide quality assistance. Obviously, we don’t want this to happen, and it seems that this won’t happen in the future short term, but it can happen and we cannot wait, ”said SMU chairman Gustavo Grecco.
Meanwhile, Cipriani said the courses are not intended to “replace the intensivist,” but to train physicians who have undergone intensive care in their training so that they can support the intensivist physician if necessary.
The theoretical and practical planning in which the Faculty of Medicine will intervene does not yet have a start date for the courses or the duration, which will depend on the number of people enrolled, explains SUMI member Luis Nuñez. The ASSE call accepts the registration of anesthesiologists, pediatric intensivists, internal medicine, cardiology and emergency specialists with more than three years of experience. Professionals must have graduated or complete the final year of the priority specialties (according to the postgraduate or residency modality), ”the call said.
Stakeholders should report to the human resources department of the executive unit they work in, while hiring will be done through a support committee if necessary. The registration period opens next Thursday and runs until Friday, January 29.
Cipriani noted that the system “operates under 60%” CTI occupancy, “as it always worked,” and said the effect of the vaccine “will not be immediate,” but that the immunization of the population will contribute to it. does not collapse. According to the latest SUMI report, there are currently 99 patients admitted to the intensive care unit occupying 56.6% of the total number of beds, leaving about 334 free beds. 12.9% are patients with covid-19.