The city of Campinas, in the interior of São Paulo, has faced overload in beds for the care of newborns, according to the municipal government. Since the second half of 2021, the hospital at Unicamp (State University of Campinas) has been undergoing renovations, which, according to the municipal administration, has been putting pressure on care at other institutions.
The ICU (Intensive Care Unit) of Maternidade de Campinas, a philanthropic hospital in the city, has more than half of its beds interdicted by the Sanitary Surveillance due to a lack of doctors. Of the 36 vacancies available in the hospital’s ICU, 20 cannot be used due to the lack of health professionals.
The maternity hospital was fined last Friday (24) for keeping 31 babies in the ICU. The hospital says that the children were kept in the unit because no other beds were made available in the SUS network (Sistema Único de Saúde) to receive the patients. “By ethical, moral and legal principle, pregnant women and babies received all the appropriate and necessary medical care for newborns, premature babies, who needed to be admitted to the Intensive Care Unit, even with the number of occupied beds being higher than the determined by Sanitary Surveillance”, says the note from the maternity hospital.
According to the city of Campinas, pregnant women at risk of premature birth have been referred to the PUC Hospital (Pontifical Catholic University) and to the Caism of Unicamp. According to the municipal administration, the number of beds available in the municipality complies with the stipulations of the Ministry of Health and the Brazilian Society of Pediatrics.
The city government said, in a statement, that it will request the State Health Department to urgently expand the neonatal beds at the Hospital de Sumaré, a municipality in the Metropolitan Region of Campinas, to guarantee care for the population.
Diarrhea
Campinas City Hall is investigating the suspicion that three babies died at the Campinas Maternity Hospital due to diarrhea. The hospital recognizes that it faced an outbreak of the disease between the 6th and 9th of February. But, according to the institution, the problem was controlled and there is no connection with the death of the newborn that occurred last Thursday (23).
In a statement, the maternity hospital highlights that babies at risk are treated at the unit. “The Neonatal ICU assists newborns from 390 grams, with malformations and other comorbidities, being a reference for extreme prematurity”. Regarding the other two cases, the results of laboratory tests are still awaited.
Judicial recovery
The maternity says that the lack of professionals to maintain the proper functioning of the ICU is due to the shortage of professionals in the market and the financial difficulties faced by the institution. The hospital went into judicial recovery in August last year.
The philanthropic hospital claims that its financial situation was aggravated by the covid-19 pandemic, which “resulted in a large increase in expenses and impacted on revenue from private and private health plans”. According to the maternity hospital, 60% of care is provided by the SUS, but only 40% of revenues come from the public network.
The maternity makes 750 births per month, 60% of them by SUS. The unit has 1,000 direct employees and 600 indirect employees.
The institution, which has been in existence for 109 years, launched a fundraising campaign to try to balance the accounts.