As the clinical director of the Dr. Nélio Mendonça Hospital, Júlio Nóbrega, told journalists, the 55 patients from the Azores (less than the number initially expected, more than six dozen) arrived at around “02.30 hours at the airport and were transported to the unit hospital and the RG3 military zone”, in Funchal.
The fire that broke out at the Hospital do Divino Espírito Santo, in Ponta Delgada, at 9:40 am local time on Saturday (10:40 am in Lisbon), forced the transfer of all patients who were hospitalized.
“We offered our services and were asked to receive 57 patients, but the number varied throughout the day. In practice, we received 55 patients. Some of them were hospitalized and had to stay [no hospital]23, and the remaining 32 were in RG3”, said the clinical director.
According to Júlio Nóbrega, the “largest group of patients, with chronic renal failure”, requiring hemodialysis treatment — which became unavailable in the Azores –, was housed in RG3.
“Twenty-one patients are already undergoing hemodialysis, of those who were in the barracks, and they are stable and very grateful”, he explained.
The person in charge also recalled that on Sunday, three patients had already arrived in the Madeiran region: two high-risk pregnant women who are hospitalized in Obstetrics, and a patient who was in intensive care, and is now in the same service at Dr. Nélio Mendonça.
Júlio Nóbrega said he still does not know how long the patients will have to stay in the region, as the situation depends on the “recovery and resumption of activity” in the largest hospital in the Azores, but assured that the Madeiran hospital will provide full collaboration “as long as it is necessary”.
On Sunday, the Government of the Azores declared a public calamity due to the fire at the Ponta Delgada hospital, on the island of São Miguel, and the regional secretary of Health and Social Security, Mónica Seidi, said that the health unit had already been targeted two inspections, but there is still no forecast for resuming normal operation of the equipment.
At the time of the fire, 333 patients were in the health establishment and it was necessary to transfer 240, according to the head of Health in the Azores.
The most critical and serious patients were transferred to the CUF hospital, in Lagoa, and the rest to health centers.
In addition to the Hospital do Divino Espírito Santo, there are two hospitals in the Azores, on the islands of Terceira (in Angra do Heroísmo) and Faial (in Horta), to which more than 50 patients were transferred.
