Patient with suspected Covid waits more than 24 hours on telemedicine

Last Friday (7), at 8 am, publicist Maurício Debon, 35, joined the line for the telemedicine service of his health plan. Another 3,500 people were already waiting for assistance. About 24 hours later, he was still waiting for his turn, in 747th position.

Debon had contact with a person with Covid-19 and had mild flu-like symptoms such as fatigue, cough and headache. The consultation would serve to report your symptoms to a doctor and be referred to carry out the exam that would reveal if you had been infected by the virus.

However, he was only able to speak to a doctor on Sunday, more than 48 hours after he first got in line. Now, Debon’s new saga is to be able to find an available time in the laboratories to finally be able to take the exam. The closest date found is this Wednesday (12).

“By then, I should be fine,” he says. The publicist’s case is not isolated, after the increase in cases of Covid and flu. With emergency rooms full, many Brazilians turned to telemedicine. But with the high demand, the system ended up being overloaded.

According to reports from professionals in the health sector, the demand for care in the first week of January was higher than in December. As the SA Panel showed, on the Telemedicine Portal, which connects doctors to clinics to offer online consultations, the waiting time has doubled compared to the height of the pandemic, as has the volume of demand.

The report contacted patients who sought virtual care after discovering that they had contact with people who tested positive for Covid-19.

Administrative assistant Amanda Silva, 23, discovered that she had contact with three co-workers whose test was positive for coronavirus and entered the telemedicine line of her health plan at 6:30 pm last Friday (7).

She noticed that it would take a long time to be served, as there were more than 4,600 people in front of her. The next day, at 12:00, she still hadn’t been able to talk to a doctor. Therefore, he sought a clinic to perform the exam.

“I don’t think it’s appropriate to go to the hospital,” she said, who had mild symptoms and also wanted to be referred for testing by the plan. “All hospitals and clinics are full in Rio de Janeiro. I didn’t want to expose myself or expose more people, but I had to come because I couldn’t be seen with telemedicine.”

Also from Rio de Janeiro, Daniella Cardoso Linhares joined the queue at 11:30 am and only managed to be served at dawn. But, due to a technical failure of the system, the query was closed. “I was pissed off. What should have been an emergency service became a martyrdom”, she says.

After the long wait, she decided to go to the Olympic Park in Rio de Janeiro, where a testing point was installed. There, she managed to be tested and the result was negative for the coronavirus. “I faced a queue that took three and a half hours of my day, even though I had a health insurance”, she laments.

Abramge (Brazilian Association of Health Plans) informed, through a note, that telemedicine and medical consultations outside the hospital environment, although overloaded, provide a good part of the demand by expanding access and health support to thousands of patients.

“They are, therefore, essential to avoid a greater capacity and the consequent inconveniences and risks of contamination in waiting rooms of emergency rooms that are also over capacity”, said the entity.