I am not a specialist, so I will try to explain it as the patients have told me and I have been able to understand. Please excuse any possible errors.
If you suffer a serious cardiovascular accident in Fuerteventura (a heart attack, for example), you are much more likely to suffer sequelae for the rest of your life (in the best of cases) than if you suffer it in Gran Canaria or Tenerife.
A cardiovascular accident in Fuerteventura, or another non-capital island, implies (again in the best of cases) a rapid transfer to the Emergency service of the Insular Hospital.
There, if the corresponding evaluation with electrocardiogram advises it, a first action will be applied through fibrinolysis. To understand each other: injecting a drug designed to facilitate the circulation of blood through the veins and, as far as possible, fight against necrosis or cell death that results from the obstruction. However, the use of fibrinolysis also carries added risks for the patient.
The drug allows to extend the wait until being attended in a Hemodynamics unit: which does not exist in the hospitals of the non-capital islands.
Therefore, the problem is complicated when, after fibrinolysis, it is necessary to transfer the patient to the Hemodynamics unit of the reference Hospital (in the case of Majorera, to Gran Canaria) to perform the catheterization that allows locating the possible obstruction of the artery and placing the STENT (a mechanism that keeps the artery open).
Or intervene with surgery if the narrowings of the arteries are in very delicate places, and thus facilitate the blood flow to reach the infarcted heart.
The steps are as follows.
From the hospitals of the non-capital islands, they call those of reference in Tenerife and Gran Canaria to authorize the transfer... Which (again in the best of cases), will be done by helicopter. Which could imply, at least, 4 or 5 hours to reach the reference Hospital.
Do you know what really happens?
Well, that transfer is not immediate (if by immediate we consider the 4 or 5 hours I was referring to). But you must wait until there are free beds in the respective Hemodynamics units of the hospitals of Tenerife and Gran Canaria... one day... 48 hours... three days... Up to a maximum of 4 or 5 days, Health tells us. Although several patients have pointed out waits for the transfer of up to 13 days.
Remember that the sooner the occluded artery is opened, the better for the patient: there are more chances of survival. In addition, the sequelae, if catheterization is performed urgently, can be much less in acute heart attacks.
That is, to the initial risk that derives from the application of fibrinolysis, we must also add the one related to the waiting and the transfer itself. Not to mention the anguish of spending days waiting for a place in the reference Hospital, knowing that every hour can be vital.
However. Let's put ourselves in the place of a patient with a cardiovascular ailment in Gran Canaria or Tenerife. He goes to the respective Emergency service, is diagnosed with an electrocardiogram and in the corresponding medical service he is given a preventive catheterization. In most cases, without the need to resort to fibrinolysis and without assuming the risks that derive from it. And, of course, in a much shorter time.
If there are no beds available in the corresponding unit, a temporary one is immediately enabled in another location. But he is not left waiting for catheterization for days and days.
I say that I speak from what the patients themselves tell me and after consulting also with specialists. I am sure that I have made many mistakes for my eagerness to explain the problem as clearly as possible.
Even so, I am sure that the difference between days and hours is vital.
We are talking about survival, but also about quality of life. Because the sequelae derived from waiting for days to receive treatment at the reference Hospital when there is a free place can be unrecoverable.
The operation of Hemodynamics units in the non-capital islands is essential. But until they are open, it is urgent to activate a protocol that immediately speeds up the transfer of patients to the reference hospitals. Exactly in the same conditions as if the patient comes from a capital island.
That to the distance and insularity we do not have to continue adding the complications to access a place in the reference Hospitals, simply because we come from another island.
The Minister of Health, José Manuel Baltar, has already demonstrated his effectiveness and availability to meet the health demands of the non-capital islands.
Only in Fuerteventura, in less than a year he has launched the CAU of Gran Tarajal, the Oncology bunker project, the expansion of the medical service of the medicalized ambulance of Morro Jable, the expansion of the Health Center of Corralejo, and the hiring of several medical specialists and many health professionals.
And we also have the commitment to finance the Hemodynamics Unit in 2018.
But what I raised here is not so much a matter of resources, but of organization.
While Hemodynamics is being launched, it is necessary to reorganize the process of activating resources, protocols and decisions, to reduce waiting and transfer times. So that the residents of the non-capital islands have the same options of access to this type of treatment as the rest.
Our lives depend on this parity.
By Mario Cabrera González, Deputy of the Canarian Nationalist Group for Fuerteventura
