New study adds to pressure on Portugal’s Institute of Emergency Medicine
Portugal’s medical emergency institute INEM is failing to respond in time to victims in life-threatening conditions.
As pressure piles on to the institute, this latest critique came in the form of a study published in Acta Médica Portuguesa.
“Prehospital Care Times and Interventions for Victims of Major Trauma in the Central Region of Portugal: A Retrospective Study” has been interpreted by Jornal de Notícias as showing that Ambulances, helicopters and emergency medical and resuscitation vehicles (VMER) are failing to rescue and stabilize patients at the scene in time.
On average, it takes INEM more than 30 minutes to be able to help the victim before transporting them to hospital, says the paper.
According to the Directorate-General for Health, the time it takes for resources to be at the scene of an incident should be a maximum of 20 minutes.
“These times are a concern because we know that there are three mortality peaks in trauma: right at the start, within the first hour and in intensive care,” explained nurse and study author Sandra Rito to JN.
In total, the researchers analyzed 2,764 interventions carried out in the Central region in 2022.
The study itself however has a slightly gentler interpretation of the data.
“Of the 3366 records, 602 were eliminated (384 due to death), resulting in 2764 cases: nurse-technician ambulance (SIV) = 36.0%, physician-nurse ambulance (VMER) = 62.2% and physician-nurse helicopter = 1.8%.
“In a very large number of records, it was not possible to determine prehospital care times: for example, transport time (T5) could be determined in only 29%, 13% and 8% of cases, respectively for SIV, VMER and helicopter.
“The recommended time for stabilization (T2 ≤ 20 min) was met in 19.8% (SIV), 36.5% (VMER) and 18.2% (helicopter).
“Time to hospital (T5 ≤ 45 min) was achieved in 80.0% (SIV), 93.1% (VMER) and 75.0% (helicopter) of the records.
“The administration of analgesia (42% in SIV) and measures to prevent hypothermia (23.5% in SIV) were the most recorded interventions.
“Conclusion: There was substantial missing data on statuses and a lack of information in the records, especially in the VMER and helicopter.
“According to the records, the time taken to stabilize the victim on-scene often exceeded the recommendations, while the time taken to transport them to the hospital tended to be within the recommendations”.
Seen in this format, the performance of INEM would seen as in line with the performance of emergency medical services in many other European countries. ND
Source: SIC Notícias/ Acta Médica Portuguesa
