“Until one has it” Covid-19 is not understood, says Honduran doctor

• RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Covid-19 “is not understood until you have it,” said Honduran doctor specialized in Rehabilitation and ex-Vice Minister of Health José Manuel Matheu, who along with his wife is recovering from the disease he contracted this year.

“You feel that you can’t breathe, that you can’t get from the house to the hospital because you are going to die; it is horrible, now I understand anyone who tells me about this, it is desperate and when you call the hospitals and they are all full, we had to live through that,” said Matheu, 60 years old. His wife’s condition was less serious.

HONDURAS’ HEALTH FUTURE IS BLEAK

He added that he required “80 liters of oxygen per minute” for 8 days, out of 9 days that he was in a very critical condition, and that this is one of the reasons why he is alive; but also because he was able to pay to be treated in a private hospital thanks to medical insurance.

“But the Honduran who does not have medical insurance is simply condemned to die and we see that every day,” emphasized the professional, with specialization studies in Mexico.

In his opinion, in the country there will be more deaths and more infections due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which began to spread in March 2020, with a balance of at least 5,141 deaths and 206,907 infections, according to the National Risk Management System (SINAGER).

With these infection figures, which according to Matheu and other medical sources are higher than those recorded daily by SINAGER, “the future is bleak for Honduras in health matters in general.”

It is “gloomy” because “in addition to the coronavirus, the precarious health system must also attend to other diseases that the country has always had, such as respiratory, diarrheal and other communicable diseases, including malaria in some regions,” he stressed.

“The health future of Honduras is bad. We have had a poor health administration and we are going to continue paying the consequences,” said Matheu outside his house, while he watched a few meters away, in the living room, two of his grandchildren playing.

THE CORONAVIRUS HAS CHANGED

After the pandemic began to spread like wildfire in the 9.5 million inhabitants country, there was much talk that people aged 50 and over were most at risk of contracting Covid-19, but it was gradually confirmed by health authorities that the incidence of infected young people is high.

SINAGER’s daily reports show children as young as one year old being infected with Covid-19, which Matheu attributes to the fact that the coronavirus has changed.

Covid-19 is driving many young people and children to the hospitals, “and if there is no proper management, they are also going to die, that is already happening in the world,” said the doctor, a “believer in God,” to which he also attributes not having died from Covid-19.

He also pointed out that another serious problem facing Honduras is that public hospitals are collapsing due to the lack of beds to attend so many patients, in addition to a shortage of vaccines.

So far the percentage of Hondurans vaccinated is less than 1% and it is not known when all will be immunized because the inoculation process has been slow, for which Matheu blames the government for “the poor management of the pandemic from the beginning.”

HOSPITALS NEED HIGH FLOWS OF OXYGEN

“The health situation in the country has been disastrous, there has been very bad management of the pandemic, from the beginning the government has stumbled,” said Matheu, a professional with a 35-year career who works at the San Felipe Hospital and a private clinic in the Honduran capital.

He also believes that there has been no official will to acquire the vaccines needed to immunize the population. “(Vaccination) is the only thing that is going to get us out of the crisis,” he says.

About his experience with Covid-19 in January, Matheu said that he and his family called public and private hospitals and none of them had beds the night he got sick.

He added that he lived 9 very difficult days and that at times, when the cases are serious, as was his, the patient “does not feel he is getting better.”

“I clung to God, asking Him in prayer for a new chance at life, because no one wants to leave their family,” he said.

Matheu advocated that in all public hospitals there should be enough oxygen available, more than 15 liters per minute, to attend to the patients, especially when they are very ill, because “they need a high flow of oxygen.”

Covid-19 has killed more than 100 doctors, nurses and other health personnel in Honduras, many of whom were on the front line of the pandemic.