LISBON (Reuters) – Portugal’s public health system is on the verge of collapse as hospitals in the areas most affected by a worrying increase in coronavirus cases are rapidly running out of intensive care beds to treat COVID-19 patients.
“Our health system is under extreme pressure,” Health Minister Marta Temido told reporters on Sunday afternoon after a visit to a hospital with difficulties. “There is a limit and we are very close to it.”
The health system, which before the pandemic had the lowest number of critical care beds per 100,000 inhabitants in Europe, can accommodate a maximum of 672 patients with COVID-19 in intensive care units or ICUs, according to the Ministry of Health.
The number of people on intensive care with COVID-19 reached 647 on Sunday, according to the DGS health authority. The Portuguese Association of Hospital Administrators said the number of coronavirus patients in need of hospitalization is likely to increase over the next week.
In three days of blockade nationwide, the country with just 10 million people reported 10,385 new cases and 152 deaths on Sunday, bringing the total number of infections to 549,801, with the death toll rising to 8,861.
According to our website webworldindata.org supported by Oxford University, Portugal has the highest number of coronavirus cases in Europe per capita in the last seven days.
Most new cases have been concentrated in Lisbon, where many patients in the city’s public hospitals have already been transferred elsewhere, including to Porto’s second-largest health facilities.
“We are already treating patients beyond our installed capacity,” said Daniel Ferro, director of Lisbon’s largest Santa Maria hospital. “And we’re not the only hospital where this is happening.”
Garcia de Orta Hospital, along the Tagus River in Lisbon, said in a statement that the hospital could soon enter a “pre-catastrophe” phase because it no longer has beds for coronavirus patients.
Reporting by Catarina Demony; Edited by Jonathan Oatis