Filenews 26 July 2023 - by Marilena Panayi
The Accident and Emergency Departments of state hospitals are filling up daily, with coastal cities already recording an increase in patient attendance. At the same time, the coronavirus seems to be returning to the fore with the number of hospitalized patients gradually increasing, without of course this causing particular concern.
Until yesterday afternoon and while in some hospitals the number of hospitalized patients with coronavirus had been zero for some time, the patients reached 32, of which one was in the Intensive Care Unit and another two in Intensive Care Units.
The increase in hospitalized patients was gradual and began to be observed ten days ago, while the average number of coronavirus patients in the previous months was 15 on a nationwide basis.
Gastroenteritis, viral and microbial, beach and sea injuries, upper respiratory problems, mainly due to the constant use of air conditioners, concern the incidents that arrive at the Emergency Departments. The Emergency Department of Famagusta Hospital normally receives an average of 80 cases.
In recent days, it has exceeded 100 cases per twenty-four hours. In the Larnaca Emergency Department from about 90 cases per day, the number increased to 140. In Limassol, while the TAEP received an average of 100 incidents, in recent days it receives 120 and in Paphos from 80 incidents served by the TAEP every twenty-four hours, it now serves around 100.
"It is a phenomenon of the summer to have increased attendance at the Emergency Departments, but at this time we are making some observations about the type of incidents that come to the first aid departments for service," the spokesman of the State Health Services Organization, Charalambos Charilaou, told "F", stressing that "we observe that in many cases patients come with symptoms of gastroenteritis due to poor food management. Food in the sun and high temperatures spoils and when consumed then causes problems for humans. That's something we need to pay attention to."
Regarding heat-related incidents, Charilaou said that until yesterday afternoon, only one patient was still hospitalized in the ICU, who had been admitted last week with heat stroke.
Regarding coronavirus patients, Mr. Charilaou said that "we have observed an increase in recent days. A total of 32 coronavirus patients were being treated in the organization's hospitals today (yesterday), while in the previous days we had an increased number of children hospitalized at Makarios hospital. The number of children now is 2 but we had reached 8 at the weekend."
The majority of coronavirus patients, he added, "are elderly people." It is a fact that we are going through a period of summer leave, people are constantly moving, we have more contacts between people, protection measures are not applied by almost anyone, and this is something that is observed all over the world, not only in Cyprus, so it is expected that we will have an increase in the transmission of the coronavirus", Mr. Charilaou concluded.
The Epidemiological Surveillance Unit of the Ministry of Health also records an increase in coronavirus cases. As the officer of the Unit, Christos Charalambous, told "F", "in recent days an increase has been recorded in all indicators. That is, the positivity rate, the cumulative incidence but also the hospitalized patients." This increase, he stressed, "is not alarming, it is small and we must take it for granted that from time to time we will have such phenomena."
