By Reuters Staff
3 Min Read
LISBON, Jan 27 (Reuters) - Hospitals in Portugal flooded with COVID-19 patients are at risk of failing to meet soaring demand for oxygen, the head of the doctors’ association said on Wednesday, after a major hospital’s supply system partly failed due to overuse.
A total of 53 patients had to be transferred from Lisbon’s Fernando Fonseca Hospital on Tuesday night in order to prevent its oxygen system from collapsing.
The problem is not a lack of oxygen, but the fact that reservoirs are incapable of providing it at enough pressure to so many patients at once, Guimaraes told Observador radio.
Portugal health system struggling as daily Covid deaths hit 293 1 minute read
Lisbon, Jan 27 (efe-epa).- Portugal is reaching its maximum hospital capacity as health authorities on Wednesday recorded a new record number of 293 deaths in a single day and dozens had to be transferred from hospitals as oxygen systems failed to match demand.
The current wave of Covid-19 in the Atlantic nation, which weathered the first surge in the spring of 2020 relatively well compared to the likes of its neighbor Spain, is unrelenting.
There were 15,073 new infections Wednesday, just shy of the previous record of 15,073.
Portugal has a population of just over 10 million.