Neonatology services in eastern Cuba still active despite COVID-19

HOLGUIN, Cuba, Mar 29 (ACN) In the midst of the epidemiological situation created by COVID-19, the neonatology service of the Vladimir Ilich Lenin University Teaching Hospital in the city of Holguin keeps providing its medical programs for newborns with low birth weight and metabolic and respiratory disorders that make them highly vulnerable to the new coronavirus.

Dr. Tamara González, head of this service, told ACN that the protection of these children is guaranteed through the mandatory compliance with the health protocols, including the use of an isolation room for the clinical and epidemiological surveillance of patients with respiratory diseases and a ban on patient visits in some wards to avoid crowding in those areas, where no positive cases of COVID-19 have been reported so far.
In 2020, the neonatology service admitted some 2,700 patients—507 of them in the intensive care unit—and the survival rate of ventilated patients was higher than 91%, a success of the Maternal and Infant Care Program, one of the priorities of the Cuban health system.