Emergency room forced to become ICU in Argentina

Emergency room Doctor Verónica Verdino never imagined that during her residency she would be intubating patients on a daily basis.

31-year old doctor who is in charge of ER on weekends at Llavallol Hospital, a small municipal clinic in outskirts of Buenos Aires, has seen emergency room transform, practically, into an intensive care unit during pandemic's second wave.

"We h to learn to intubate different patients," said Dr. Verdino. "Everybody has to be very well coordinated because lives of patients are decided in minutes".

As Argentina experiences a brutal second wave of COVID-19 with daily death tolls of more than 500 a day, emergency rooms have become first line of treatment of covid-suspect patients coming in serious conditions.

And at Llavallol Hospital, given that all 13 beds in intensive care unit for coronavirus patients are almost always occupied, emergency room personnel have to step up to plate, intubating and keeping patients in ir ward who wouldn't have to be re in a normal scenario.

Last Saturday night, Claudia Laborde, 56, arrived in an ambulance with her husband Eduardo Ortíz, 71, experiencing shortness of breath and heart pain.

Three days earlier Laborde h been released from a different hospital after having COVID-19 but doctors at ER feared she was still infected because of her symptoms.

Quickly her situation deteriorated, doctors from Intensive Care Unit were consulted and h to be intubated while her husband sat on a stretcher in corridor.

On Monday, she died.

In an ER room nearby two men laid intubated and anor who h just died was put in a black plastic bag.

Concerned by pressure on health system and a lack of available hospital beds, government has extended restrictions to several activities including indoor sports, in-person classes and a nighttime curfew.

By Monday, Argentina h reported over 3 million coronavirus cases and more than 64,000 deaths linked to COVID-19.

So far 8 million people have received one dose of vaccine - out of a population of about 45 million - and about a million have completed both doses.