The collapse at the Son Espases Emergency Department forces the suspension of Wednesday's operations

PalmaThe Son Espases University Hospital has suspended scheduled surgical activity for this Wednesday, except for oncological and priority interventions, to speed up care in the Emergency Department, where there are currently 69 patients awaiting admission. The hospital center has activated a contingency plan in response to the increase in healthcare demand recorded over the last two weeks. As reported by the Ministry of Health this Tuesday in a statement, during this period there have been eight days in which more than 500 patients per day were seen in the Emergency Department. This is a figure higher than the hospital's annual average, which stands at 475 visits each day.

The IB-Salut attributes this increase to the start of the respiratory virus season, such as the flu and covid, which has led to an increase in the influx of patients. According to the Department, the majority profile is that of elderly people with respiratory pathologies. Among the exceptional measures adopted, in addition to suspending scheduled surgeries for this Wednesday, the hospital will advance the interventions of patients who are already admitted and waiting to be operated on. The objective is to free up beds and facilitate the entry of new patients who need hospitalization. The contingency plan also includes reducing hospital scheduling, speeding up the availability of beds after medical discharges, and strengthening home hospitalization.

Patients with multipathologies

In this context, on October 19th, 34 beds were already enabled at the Verge de la Salut hospital to transfer multi-pathological patients from Son Espases. Furthermore, the center has requested the referral of several patients to the General Hospital, which depends on Son Espases, and to the Sant Joan de Déu hospital. These referrals are framed within the current agreement with IB-Salut for the management of patients with multiple pathologies.

Finally, the hospital reminded that this year it has launched a Post-Surgical Observation Unit with eight beds for stays of less than 24 hours. According to the center, this resource allows for the release of about 32 conventional hospitalization beds each week and improves the response capacity of the Emergency department during times of greater care pressure.