Coimbra ULS opens contingency ward at HUC

The Coimbra Local Health Unit (ULS) opened a contingency ward at the Coimbra University Hospitals yesterday, with 10 additional beds for respiratory patients. Previously, on the 2nd, the new Central Bed Management Unit, which operates 24 hours a day, had started operating. According to the ULS, this is “an innovation introduced by the HUC with the aim of optimizing the use and distribution of 1,267 hospital beds. In an update on the Contingency Plan for the Seasonal Health Response – Winter Module, the ULS reports that it registered, last Thursday (day 2), an “intense activity”, with 847 episodes attended to in emergency services, of which 42 resulted in hospitalization, 454 attendances related to respiratory infections in health centers and 360 attendances via the SNS 24 Line.

According to the structure, on January 2nd and 3rd, the emergency service health teams were operating with additional professionals. “The average waiting time for triage was 21 minutes. The average time between triage and the first medical observation was 54 minutes (a value that varies according to the priority assigned and time of day), and for non-urgent patients, it reached 71 minutes, with the total waiting time in some cases exceeding 4 hours”, adds the ULS.

(Full text in the digital and printed edition of Diário As Beiras)