Ternium handed in mechanical ventilators to the ICU to fight COVID-19: there are two for San Isidro Hospital and one for the Santa Sofia Departmental Hospital at Manizales.
The two new mechanical ventilators that were handed to the San Isidro Hospital are the first donation of medical equipment that this public hospital will receive, these are the first and only available at this health facility; the community will use these during the COVID-19 emergency.
“The benefits of this donation are for the city. We are happy that the equipment is now at our facilities so that we can start to give this service to the community in the following days. This resource can guarantee the life of a patient with severe respiratory problems,” San Isidro Hospital Manager, Cesar Rincones added.
A mechanical ventilator is a machine that aids the respiration of a person that is no longer able to do so by his or her own and regulates oxygen’s input into the lungs and the rest of the organism. This equipment is linked to other monitors and medical equipment, constituting an Intensive Care Unit (ICU), whose implementation costs nearly 150 million pesos, 60% of which equals to the cost of the ventilator.
Health Reinforcement
“We, at management, are developing the Manizales Super Community campaign through two action fronts. One of them is the reinforcement of the Hospital Network of the city where Ternium bounds with these ventilators donation as part of the implementation of Intensive Care Units that we require for proper health care”, adds Paula Andrea Valencia Alvaro, Manizales Social Development Secretary.
According to doctor Jorge Ivan Marin, a specialist in critical medicine and the study of infectious diseases at San Isidro, 15% of infected people are going to enter an ICU, and they will require a mechanical respirator. In comparison, the other 85% will be minor cases which will not require hospitalization. Having this equipment is a great advantage.
“The virus can unleash severe pneumonia in people who have respiratory problems; the patient would need to be connected to a mechanical ventilator. Otherwise, the person could die from respiratory failure; it is for this reason that having the equipment is a great advantage,” Marin added.
Managers and the medical team of San Isidro Hospital, along with Manizales’ civil authorities, participated in the delivery of medical equipment. On behalf of Ternium, there were Orlando Plata, Operations Manager, Jhon Jairo Ruiz, Occupational Physician, and Dora Ospina from Human Resources.
Preparation with the community
According to the Ministry of Health at Caldas’ department, they have 36 people infected to this day. Manizales currently has 128 ICU s located at hospitals with a complexity level of 3 and with an 80% occupancy. It is calculated that the city will require at least 260 (ICU s) to take care of the virus’ spread.
San Isidro is a level 2 public hospital that has 34 specialties, and that has around 200 direct and indirect collaborators. Most patients that come into the hospital belong to an advanced age population, who have the highest risk of getting the virus, so that was one of the reasons Ternium decided to make its donation to this hospital.
This donation responds to the actions that the company foresees to support the needs of communities where Ternium is present. “We must all work together to fortify the sanitary structure as well as the response capability facing this situation,” Orlando Plata, Operations Manager at Ternium, explained.
Ternium will also deliver a third mechanical ventilator to the Santa Sofia Departmental Hospital located at Manizales, and it will be delivered in the following days. This facility is a third level public hospital and takes care of patients with high complexities, which are forwarded from all the towns of the Caldas department.