It's not entirely unusual for people to go to the emergency room because they've inserted an object into their rectum and can't remove it. What is more exceptional is that the object in question is a 1918 artillery shell. Medical staff at Rangueil Hospital in Toulouse (Occitanie) were stunned early Sunday morning when they discovered that the object a 24-year-old man admitted to the emergency room had in his rectum was an artillery shell. The story has been reported by various French media outlets, such as Le Figaro, France 3 and The Dépêche du Midi

Fourteen-year-old Fiona Olivé lives with a constant cough and runny nose. It's as if she's always sick. During the cold season, her family is always on high alert to prevent her from getting seriously ill, as any respiratory infection can easily become complicated and develop into pneumonia. The young girl is allergic to various types of dust mites, grasses, and cats, and for a time, there was also a suspicion that she was allergic to eggplants, which was recently ruled out after controlled food exposure at the Sant Pau Hospital's day hospital. However, for the two years she lived with this suspicion, she had to act like a person with allergies. de facto to this vegetable. During this period, explains Karla Islas, her mother, the hardest thing for her was having to constantly be aware of the allergy "and, before eating anything, having to ask or be alert in case it contained eggplant." The young woman "also found it difficult at school," she adds.

The CEO of Ribera Salut – the company that manages the Torrejón de Ardoz Hospital in Madrid – Pablo Gallart, has temporarily stepped down from his responsibilities at this healthcare center following the release of audio recordings of a meeting in which He ordered the rejection of unprofitable patients or procedures in order to lengthen waiting lists and increase his profits.The Ribera group has stated in a press release that Gallart's withdrawal from the hospital's management aims to "guarantee the group's values and ethics." The recordings that triggered this move were published by the newspaper. The Country These statements correspond to a meeting held on September 25th with management from the group and the hospital. In one of his remarks, Gallart said: "In Torrejón, in 2022 and 2023, we decided as an organization to make an effort to reduce the waiting list. All I ask is: let's reverse course." Now, the management company claims to be conducting an "in-depth" audit with the aim of "guaranteeing that there has been no breach of quality standards in patient care, professional ethics, or the law."

The earlier cancer is diagnosed, the better the prognosis for patients. All professionals fighting the disease are working with this idea in mind, seeking new strategies to improve early detection and begin treating patients at earlier stages, when survival rates are higher. People suspected of having prostate cancer or a neuroendocrine tumor must undergo a test called positron emission tomography (PET/CT), which ultimately determines whether or not there is any trace of the disease. These tests require a very special type of medication prepared with a radioactive isotope, and until now, all Catalan hospitals had to purchase these drugs from external laboratories. Since September, however, the Germans Trias i Pujol Hospital has become the first center in Catalonia to have full autonomy in this field after incorporating a generator for this isotope, called gallium-68.

As a legacy of the pandemic, the Catalan health system has a multitude of contingency plans to respond to external phenomena quickly and flexibly. The latest example of an emergency situation shook the Iberian Peninsula on Monday. While the country held its breath for an unprecedented blackout that paralyzed everythingPrimary care centers (CAPs) and hospitals ensured that all urgent activity that could not be postponed could be handled normally. However, to ensure they had sufficient energy and to avoid travel at this most uncertain time, almost 5,000 medical tests and 500 operations were postponed, according to provisional data from the Department of Health. Sources consulted by ARA emphasize that all interventions without serious impacts on care are already being rescheduled.

The number of sick leaves due to covid (or at least due to symptoms compatible with the virus) has doubled in the last month due to the avalanche of infections during the seventh wave: about 5,000 infections are detected every day despite the fact that the real figure is much higher. Up until now, and since last May, diagnostic efforts were focused exclusively on the vulnerable population; those infected who felt unable to go to work (or work from home) had to go to their health centres in person to request a sick leave from their GP leave, who decided whether the symptoms they described were incapacitating. In short, the Department of Health standardised the evaluation and management of covid as if it were any other pathology. But as of Wednesday, due to the high incidence in the middle of the summer season, with fewer professionals working and with the fear that the health service could collapse for a third consecutive year, the Department has brought back online and automatic processing of sick leave for symptoms compatible with covid. This sick leave is limited (only valid for five days) and will allow the affected population to request sick leave on La Meva Salut app or the Salut website, without the need to provide a positive test and without having to make an appointment to visit their doctor.

Contagions are on the rise and Catalonia is once again experiencing a wave of covid, the seventh in just over two years. Most of the cases are not recorded because, by protocol, tests are only carried out on the over-60 and results from tests carried out at home are no longer counted. This means knowing how the pandemic is evolving is now more difficult than ever, but there is one indisputable way to identify a significant increase in infections: an increase in the number of patients seen by primary care centres and hospitals. And this is precisely what is happening. Catalan Health minister Josep Maria Argimon doubts the impact of this wave will be similar to those experienced in previous waves, but the rise in cases coincides with staff holidays, especially nurses, who are usually the most difficult positions to fill. In addition, according to primary care and hospital workers, there is limited information on the variants now in circulation, which have a greater capacity for transmission. There is no doubt, however, that the more infections there are, the more overloaded the system will be.

It was an innocent question: "How are you?" But enough to tip her over. "I burst into tears and I couldn't stop. I thought I was fine, but I had an anxiety attack. They sent me home and I spent two months with psychological help," explains Marta –fictitious name– an A&E nurse at Bellvitge Hospital. The increased workload, fatigue and uncertainty impact on health workers' mental health after almost two years of the pandemic. Marta works in the emergency surgical block, the only one of the five blocks that attended everything but covid during the pandemic, "and we have found ourselves with a greater workload because operating rooms, outpatient clinics and diagnostic tests have stopped, pathologies have taken longer to diagnose and tumors longer to be operated on, and this means it is more likely for there to be complications," she explains. She assures that they are not back to 100% activity. "At each wave, when beds were needed for covid, we have had to stop our activity. And now, with the sixth wave, patients cannot go up to the ward because they are occupied with covid patients and they accumulate in A&E, it is a collapse". After two months on sick leave she has already returned to her job.

There is a big gap between the "feeling" among the population that the pandemic is over and what hospitals are experiencing these days. This is what the director of the Catalan Health Institute, Yolanda Lejardi, has stated in an interview with RAC1, and has assured that "the feeling that we have already passed the worst of the pandemic is absolutely confronted with reality". The fifth wave, she said, puts efforts to normalise medical care "at risk".

There is growing concern about the rapid increase in hospitalisations among young people, especially among the unvaccinated. Right now, seven in ten people admitted to hospital due to covid are not vaccinated: they account for 77.6% of the 219 patients in intensive care units (ICU) and 71% of the 1,185 patients in conventional wards. "But we cannot say that these are people who have not wanted to be vaccinated," said the Secretary of Public Health, Carmen Cabezas, who added that, although some may have refused the vaccine, some had not yet been offered an appointment. For example, because it is relatively recently that the vaccination has been opened to age groups under 40.

The explosion of covid-19 cases has already reached hospitals and Catalonia has almost 1,000 patients in hospital, the highest figure for two months. The Department of Health has reported 104 more hospital admissions in the past hours, meaning there are already 980 patients on the ward. In addition, 22 more patients have been moved to intensive care units (ICU), taking the total to 182, mostly aged between 44 and 49 and 60 and 69 and having received either only one dose o no doses of the vaccine.

Covid vaccines are effective. The over 3,290 million doses administered in the world prove it, but also the paradigm shift that has been taking place in Catalonia for a few weeks. Despite the uncontrolled explosion of new infections especially among the youngest people, hospitalizations and deaths have been decoupled from the curve of contagion. Unlike other waves, the rampant transmission of the fifth wave is not resulting in a massive increase in admissions or deaths, although there is a spike in emergency room visits among those younger than 30 and some patients are also arriving in intensive care units (ICUs), especially people between 40 and 69 years of age.

The avalanche of covid cases - more than 7,000 in the last hours - and tests for close contacts have saturated the primary care centres and the Department of Health has decided on Wednesday that hospitals will also enable points to make diagnostic tests. Health minister Josep Maria Argimon has admitted "a lot of concern" for health centres in an interview on Tv3 and has indicated that support from hospital staff will help ease the pressure health centres have been experiencing over the past fortnight, especially in Barcelona and its metropolitan area. The assistant to the direction of primary care of the Institut Català de la Salut (ICS), Ariadna Mas, has explained on Catalunya Ràdio that tents will be set up outside health centres to test positive contacts and thus avoid risk of contagion inside the facilities. "We need many hands for testing and diagnosis," she explained.

The paediatric emergencies re-live a winter in the middle of June. The respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), the cause of bronchiolitis, has returned to consultation and intensive care units (ICU) after months of forced disappearance by the pandemic. This time, moreover, it is breaking the patterns of pediatricians: until now it was a virus with a very seasonal behavior and related to the cold. There have always been big peaks of bronchiolitis between the months of November and March. However this year, there have been less than half the expected number of cases. On the other hand, from April onwards - already outside the usual calendar for this virus and with covid increasingly under control - both the number of cases and hospitalisations have risen. In general clinics, for example, the week of May 17, there were more than 200 cases in children under five years old, a figure not seen since February 2020.

In the Hospital de Sant Pau in Barcelona, like all health centers in the country, they have worked at full capacity during the Easter holidays. In this case, also in network with other health care services to start referring patients in anticipation of a rise in admissions for coronavirus that can lead to the limit of intensive care services. "We are concerned because we expect, at least, a scenario similar to the third wave and everything suggests that we will have an increase in ICU admissions which will strain the rest of the priority activity", explains Mireia Puig, head of the emergency department at Sant Pau. In fact, most health professionals consulted by the ARA already take for granted that from next week on they will have to once again start to unschedule non-covid hospital activity. And to avoid this, they stress, we must contain the virus, the sooner the better. In the absence of a good rate of vaccination coverage among the most vulnerable population, they all say that the only tool available is the tightening of restrictions.

For over a year hospitals have been living a constant déjà-vu: wards are never completely emptied and each new wave of patients challenges intensive care services. It is only a few days since the fourth wave of the coronavirus broke out - or a rebound in the third wave, depending on who you ask - and intensive care units (ICUs) are already suffering. Occupancy in critical areas has soared 19% in the last ten days and has gone from 406 covid patients on March 31 to 495 that this Friday. The centres had already compromised much of their activity through covid, as since the summer Catalonia has failed to bring occupation below 300 patients, and the desire to continue to ensure care for other diseases is subjecting professionals to great stress.

The occupation of intensive care units (ICU) is the only indicator in decline in Catalonia, after it has gone from 417 patients to 400 in the last hours. However, the concern in Catalan hospitals does not recede, but new alarm signals have been lit: critical areas are increasingly attending younger covid patients with more a severe and faster progression. In addition, since a few weeks ago, the rate of admissions to the ICU is higher than hospitalizations, when, until now, these two values were quite proportional: between 15 and 30% of patients on the ward or treated in the emergency department ended up in the ICU. Now, while conventional beds are being emptied of coronavirus patients - a month ago they accounted for 14.6% of those admitted and they now represent 10.9% -, critical beds are being vacated very slowly or even filled again quickly.