Contingency Plan for the Intensive Care Services for the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

In January 2020, the Chinese authorities identified a new virus of the Coronaviridae family as the cause of several cases of pneumonia of unknown aetiology. The outbreak was initially confined to Wuhan City, but then spread outside Chinese borders. On 31 January 2020, the first case was declared in Spain. On 11 March 2020, The World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. On 16 March 2020, there were 139 countries affected. In this situation, the Scientific Societies SEMICYUC and SEEIUC, have decided to draw up this Contingency Plan to guide the response of the intensive care services. The objectives of this plan are to estimate the magnitude of the problem and identify the necessary human and material resources. This is to provide the Spanish Intensive Medicine Services with a tool to programme optimal response strategies.

The threat of COVID‐19 and its influence on nursing staff burnout

“…This unique finding could be due to the quasi‐collapse situation experienced by the Spanish Health System as a consequence of the high number of COVID‐19 infections in hospitals. Unfortunately, as with previous pandemics (Cheong et al., 2007; Tzeng & Yin, 2006), hospitals became chaotic places at times, particularly in the emergency services, where nurses had to care for a large number of patients each shift, twice as many as they care for in a normal shift (Rascado Sedes et al., 2020). This forced nurses to be quick, to be vigilant in isolating anyone who appeared to be experiencing a respiratory illness and to multitask to provide the patient with the necessary care and prevent the spread of the virus.…”

“…This ratio is far higher than that found in the rest of Europe (5.3 patients per nurse). Due to the high number of infected people arriving at hospitals after the state of health emergency was declared, with an average of 6,000 patients per day (Spanish Ministry of Health, 2020), the average number of patients per nurse increased to 13 and working hours per shift increased from 8–12, endangering patient safety (CNDE, 2020; Rascado Sedes et al., 2020; SATSE Nursing Union, 2020). This arises from a lack of staff, one of the factors that most affected nurses’ capacity to manage their significant workload in previous pandemics (Corley et al., 2010; Lam & Hung, 2013).…”

Tratamiento farmacológico de la COVID-19: revisión narrativa de los Grupos de Trabajo de Enfermedades Infecciosas y Sepsis (GTEIS) y del Grupo de Trabajo de Transfusiones Hemoderivados (GTTH)

“…La infección por el virus SARS-CoV-2, denominada COVID-19 (COronaVIrus Disease 19) , fue detectada inicialmente en China en diciembre 2019 1 , y posteriormente se ha diseminado rápidamente por todo el mundo, hasta el punto de que el 11 de marzo la OMS declaró que el brote podría definirse como pandemia 2 . En nuestro país, la SEMICYUC ha elaborado un Plan de Contingencia para organizar la asistencia a los pacientes críticos con COVID-19 3 . SARS-CoV-2 provoca un cuadro que oscila desde episodios leves seudogripales a otros graves e incluso potencialmente mortales debido, sobre todo, a insuficiencia respiratoria aguda.…”

Pharmacological treatment of COVID-19: Narrative review of the Working Group in Infectious Diseases and Sepsis (GTEIS) and the Working Groups in Transfusions and Blood Products (GTTH)

“…2 In our country, the SEMICYUC has devised a Contingency Plan to arrange medical care for critically ill patients with COVID-19. 3 SARS-CoV-2 causes clinical signs that go from mild flu-like symptoms to severe and even potentially deadly episodes, especially, acute respiratory distress. These patients are often admitted to our Intensive Care Unit with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).…”