Selene Velasco/ Reform Agency
Tuesday, January 03, 2023 | 07:45
CDMX.- Valeria is an ISSSTE nurse in CDMX, since 2020 she has been on the front line of Covid-19 care. She caught it while caring for patients and now works with the consequences of the disease: short-term memory loss, permanent runny nose and kidney problems.
“Some things are forgotten at the moment, such as names or where you were going or why you were going, little things like that. That is in my case or like allergies in the morning,” he said.
History repeats itself with Laura, a nurse at the capital’s Health Secretariat (Sedesa).
“The cough and secretions have not been removed from me, I am barely recovering my sense of smell and taste,” he said.
According to Bárbara Camacho, Enrique Hernández and Mireya Martínez, specialists from the National Institute of Genomic Medicine and the Ignacio Chávez National Institute of Cardiology, in the worst crises of the coronavirus emergency (2020-2021), out of 17,203 cases of employees with a verified positive test, there were 248 deaths.
Ask health personnel to follow up
Among the infections, more than 60 percent were from nursing personnel and the rest from medicine. Three comorbidities stood out in the cases; obesity, between 14 and 15 percent; followed by hypertension, from 9 to 12 percent, and diabetes, from 6 to 7 percent.
This has caused an indeterminate impact on the Health system, which must be addressed before the hospital network is overwhelmed, as occurred in the first phase of Covid-19, the specialists emphasized.
“The Covid-19 epidemic has become a challenge for health systems around the world and, particularly, for health workers. This study showed that the main comorbidities and risk variables present at the time of diagnosis, or presenting serious complications in middle-aged health workers in the Republic were: obesity, hypertension, diabetes and smoking,” they indicated.
“Health care workers are a very valuable resource. This has been especially notable in the face of the recent pandemic. The population most at risk of serious infection and fatal outcomes are those people, including health personnel, who at the moment of getting sick from this contagion have one or more risk factors, including some comorbidities.
The analysis of the Genomic Medicine and Cardiology researchers added that the sequelae must be duly observed and attended to.
“These findings contribute to alert society, so as not to neglect the well-being of this valuable group, which is expected to be an example of self-care and leadership in implementing strategies to promote healthy lifestyles,” they added.
