Swine flu in Mexico: Citizens’ views
The BBC has comments from Mexican citizens giving a sense of the country as pandemic fear takes hold. One sample:
‘m a specialist doctor in respiratory diseases and intensive care at the Mexican National Institute of Health. There is a severe emergency over the swine flu here. More and more patients are being admitted to the intensive care unit. Despite the heroic efforts of all staff (doctors, nurses, specialists, etc) patients continue to inevitably die. The truth is that anti-viral treatments and vaccines are not expected to have any effect, even at high doses. It is a great fear among the staff. The infection risk is very high among the doctors and health staff.
There is a sense of chaos in the other hospitals and we do not know what to do. Staff are starting to leave and many are opting to retire or apply for holidays. The truth is that mortality is even higher than what is being reported by the authorities, at least in the hospital where I work it. It is killing three to four patients daily, and it has been going on for more than three weeks. It is a shame and there is great fear here. Increasingly younger patients aged 20 to 30 years are dying before our helpless eyes and there is great sadness among health professionals here.
Antonio Chavez, Mexico City
Let’s hope that communication in the US between the government and its citizens is better than in Mexico. I am glad Obama and not Bush is President now. I do wish the Senate republicans would stop playing politics with his HHS Secretary appointment. What a terrible time for us not to have a Secretry of Health and Human Services.
April 26th, 2009