Portugal, struggling to contain a coronavirus outbreak that led to the highest death rate in Europe, has quickly filled the beds in intensive care units established for Covid-19 patients and is being forced to refuse critically ill patients from hospitals.
Overburdened hospitals, especially in the capital region, Lisbon, asked patients to try to treat themselves at home and some patients were transferred to hospitals in regions with less severe outbreaks. The government also asked for help from other European countries.
Those who attend Lisbon hospitals find a system on the edge, with dozens of people lining up outside and waiting for treatment in ambulances.
“I really did not believe that this could have happened in Portugal, with patients going from door to door to find a hospital to be saved,” said Tomás Lamas, a doctor who works in the intensive care units of two hospitals in Lisbon. Hospitals are now being forced to make life and death decisions about which patients to treat. “Three months ago, we had patients hospitalized in intensive care, but now they are not being considered, basically because they have chronic diseases or are elderly,” he said.
Portugal, a nation of about 10 million inhabitants on the Iberian Peninsula, faces the worst pandemic crisis. He recorded 12,757 coronavirus-related deaths, 5,576 of them in the last month alone.
Last spring, during the first wave of infections, Portugal was one of Europe’s success stories after implementing a strict blockade that helped keep the death toll low, especially compared to neighboring Spain.
But since Christmas, Portugal has faced an increase in cases and deaths. This week, while new cases appeared to be decreasing in some regions, the outbreak in Lisbon was on the rise. “We hope that some weeks will be difficult,” said Pedro Siza Vieira, Portugal’s economy minister, in a telephone interview on Tuesday.
Siza Vieira contracted the virus last month and about a third of key government officials fell ill or had to isolate themselves after contacting someone who had a positive test.
Mr. Siza Vieira said that “many people” in Portugal had seen family members during the Christmas holidays. Many, he added, crossed the country, ignoring the rules that prohibit domestic travel. “Evidence of mobility in the country shows that people did not even respect the restrictions we had in place,” he said.
Portuguese authorities also believe that the crisis was amplified by the rapid spread of the virus variant first discovered in Britain, which was probably brought to the country by Portuguese who work in Britain and traveled back to Christmas, said Siza Vieira. “We have no evidence that the Brazilian variant is significantly active in Portugal, although we have evidence that the UK variant explains more than half of the new cases, particularly in the Lisbon area,” he said.
But the British authorities expressed their own concern about the spread in Portugal of the variant discovered for the first time in Brazil, prompting Britain to announce travel restrictions to Portugal, which is popular with British tourists. The travel ban was part of a wave of border closures around the world, as countries rush to limit the spread of new variants by launching mass vaccination campaigns.
Isabel Vaz, who runs a network of 15 private hospitals, 11 clinics and a public hospital across the country, said that Portugal should be commended for doubling the number of intensive care beds in the last year, as well as for the close coordination between its members. public and private health systems to make full use of available resources.
Ms. Vaz added that Portugal was caught in a difficult balancing act in the run for Christmas, wanting to revive its economy and take full account of the risks of another wave of infections.
“As a country, I feel like we don’t understand the real enemy and the risks we face during the winter,” she said. “But it is clear that no country’s health system is prepared for a tsunami like this.”
Whatever is causing infections in Portugal, new cases are only beginning to show signs of slowing down after a national blockade was reinstated in mid-January. Across the country, residents are forced to stay at home and all non-essential stores are closed. Citizens were also prohibited from traveling outside the country, unless for exceptional reasons.
Portugal was initially one of the most backward countries in Europe in terms of vaccine distribution, with the launch also marked by some skip-the-line scandals. But Siza Vieira insisted that the country is now on track to vaccinate about 10% of the population by the beginning of March. He said 270,000 first doses of the vaccine and 70,000 second doses were administered by Monday.
In Lisbon hospitals, employees work around the clock to prepare for the expected increase in patients who need emergency treatment. More wards are being converted into space for Covid-19 patients, but, said Lamas, “adding beds is not the same as adding human resources, and we are calling on doctors and nurses from other specialties to help us, but who are not used to it to deal with this type of patient. “
“It’s like starting from scratch,” he continued, “because teaching people to use different equipment – and in a safe way – is a gigantic job”.
Portugal assumed the rotating presidency of the European Union in January, and pandemic efforts appear to be its focus.
Mr. Siza Vieiria said the bloc needed additional powers to deal with a pandemic, including “uniform criteria on how to open or close borders”.
“One of the lessons that this crisis teaches us is that we really need a European Union with powers and resources to deal with this type of threat that humanity faces and that can only be combated at the continental level,” he said.
Some countries in the bloc offered assistance to Portugal over the weekend. German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said that her country was preparing to send army personnel and equipment, noting that all those deployed would be vaccinated. And Chancellor Sebastian Kurz of Austria said on Twitter that his country would welcome patients transferred from Portugal, without detailing how many.
Ricardo Baptista Leite, opposition deputy in Portugal who is also a doctor and head of the public health department at the Catholic University of Portugal, said he was grateful for the support.
“Now we have international aid coming in to try to save as many lives as we can,” he said. “But the time will come to assess what went wrong.”