|
| 
Published Monday, February 1, 2021
Guanacaste hospital fails in the
covid-19 vaccination campaign,
says Social Security
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The guideline for vaccinating the first pre-selected group of people was not obeyed, reported Social Security after an audit process at the Enrique Baltodano Hospital in Liberia Canton, Guanacaste Province.
This group includes the elderly who live in nursing homes, nursing home employees, health workers, members of the police force, firefighters and National Commission Emergency workers.
According to the results of the inspection, 78 professionals who work in the emergency room and the special unit to treat covid-19 patients were not vaccinated, instead other hospital workers were vaccinated.
"The correct action would have been to achieve with the vaccination of workers in emergency areas and those dedicated 100% to work at covid-19 salons, instead of advancing in other workers areas that, although they are related to covid-19 patients, they are not entirely in the direct care to these types of patients," Social Security said in its statement.
According to the investigation, 16 hospital workers should not have been vaccinated because their roles are different. They are not part of the emergency room staff, the delivery unit, the covid-19 unit or the medical service.
The results of the investigation will be used to determine the people responsible for the error in the vaccination process, they said.
Since the start of the vaccination campaign against covid-19 in December 2020, there have been 48,128 vaccines applied, Social Security said. Of these, 45,707 have received their first-dose and 2,421 are second-dose vaccine recipients.
The vaccination campaign will continue for the next few weeks, despite Pfizer delaying the vaccine delivery to Costa Rica. The goal is to give the second dose to all the people who have already received their first dose.
As of yesterday, 104,325 doses have been imported of the 3 million doses purchased for $36 million. Only 3% of the purchased vaccine shipment has made its way into the country. And of that, 46% has been administered.
On Friday, the most updated report by the Ministry of Healthy, about covid-19 in Costa Rica revealed that:
• 639 new covid-19 cases are reported, bringing the total to 38,720 current active cases.
• 23,931 foreign-born people have been infected, totaling 193,276 cases since March, approximately 12.4% of the total cases. Of these, authorities confirmed the death of 32 foreign-born patients. But since October, there is no updated information about foreign-born deaths due to covid-19.
• 449 patients are being treated in public hospitals, where 180 patients are in ICU’s in delicate health conditions. Their ages range from 1 to 92-years-old. And 249 patients are in recovery rooms. Many of the remaining infected patients are quarantined in their homes.
• 151,952 patients have fully recovered, a 78.6% recovery rate of the total cases since March.
• 584,200 covid-19 tests have been conducted in Costa Rica since March, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering of Johns Hopkins University in the U.S.
• 2,604 deaths are listed as covid-19 related, approximately 1.3% death rate. Of these 981 are women and 1,623 men. The ages range from a 2-year-old to a 101-year-old.
Readers can see the current number of infected people in each district at the National Distance Education University on its Covid-19 Map.
According to Johns Hopkins University, the pandemic has killed more than 2.2 million people worldwide.
-------------------
What have you heard about failures in the vaccine efforts against covid-19 in your country? We would like to know your thoughts on this story. Send your comments to news@amcostarica.com
|
