Citing shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) and little government support in their ongoing battle against Covid-19, five department chiefs at a Social Security Institute (IMSS) hospital in Acapulco have resigned since December.

In the last month, medical staff in charge of the Vincente Guerrero hospital’s surgical, anesthesia, X-ray, emergency, and internal medicine departments have all quit, beginning on December 18 with the resignation of the chief of the emergency department, who had contracted Covid-19 in 2020 and had since returned to duty.

But the resigning chiefs have not been relieved of their duties, according to a statement by doctors, nurses and other workers at the hospital, “because no one wants to take [the positions].”

Medical staff said they have reached the limit of their abilities to treat Covid patients, given the protective equipment shortages and a lack of government support.

Staff also warned that they have seen increased numbers of Covid cases arriving at the hospital, in part due to people who are coming from other Guerrero municipalities, and even Mexico City, looking for treatment.

“These are people are coming from Mexico City because the hospitals there are full,” one worker, who preferred to remain anonymous, told the newspaper Milenio.

As of last week, Mexico City’s IMSS hospitals had only six general care beds left, although it did have 200 beds with ventilators, 183 of which IMSS said could be used by patients who don’t require intubation. Some experts have predicted that the city’s hospitals will run out of Covid beds this month.

Elsewhere in Guerrero, IMSS and State Workers Social Security Institute hospitals in Iguala were full or close to it last week. There were beds available in a provisional Covid unit, but no medical personnel to treat patients, according to Mayor Antonio Jaimes Herrera.

Source: Milenio (sp)