Dr. Ileydis attributes a determining role to the participation of the population and the territory in general. Photos: Pastor

I do not know if on a social scale it is happening as in the domino game or in the context of a good chess game among amateurs: the outsider clearly appreciates the plays or moves that the contestants fail to see...

This is the impression that a fortuitous conversation with Dr. Ileydis Iglesias Marichal, director of the Institute of Endocrinology, leaves me again, who has spent more than a month in Ciego de Ávila fighting hard against the spread of a virus that continues to grieve dozens of families within the territory.

“Social indiscipline is still maintained and thus we are not going to finish solving the problem. Stopping the transmission is a problem that corresponds to the people of Ciego de Ávila. You have to finish understanding that. Everyone, at all times, has to do their part”, the doctor insists almost as a plea.

“Right here, at the Doctor Antonio Luaces Iraola Provincial Hospital, there are too many companions. That cannot happen anywhere in Cuba. In fact, in many it does not happened. Here, it has not been achieved in the midst of the very complex situation that the province is going through. It happens as if people do not reason that when you enter a hospital, being able to avoid it, you are running a very high risk of bringing the virus into your home. Of that, let no one doubt. Why don't we avoid danger then?"

The specialist agrees that they have been working in this regard... "in the reorganization of services, in the opening of more capacities, in the faster and more efficient classification of the patient who arrives with COVID-19, in a better use and control of the medications… and I think that results are beginning to be seen.

“We know that there is a shortage of personnel to ensure better care for citizens who enter for various reasons. I do not deny that the accompaniment could be authorized in a very specific case, without that person going out to anything during the entire period of admission, but it is necessary to take extreme control, organize even more efficiently a courier service for if the family brings some type of food so that unnecessary mobility within the hospital can be reduced.

“If you look at it, there are fewer people in the emergency room of the hospitals, I see a better management of patients in general, especially those who get worse, but that is a tough fight. Several colleagues are known to have infected. It is also known that many doctors and nurses from other provinces have joined and are giving their best effort.

“As a Ciego de Ávila`s citizen that I am, I want to thank this attitude and, at the same time, make a new call to the population to cooperate more and increase discipline. Any help from other territories and from the country will always be very important, but the true solution of the problems, to get out of this difficult situation, corresponds, above all, to the people of the territory. Moreover, I have no doubt that in the end they will be able to do it. "