Doctors see many injured on ice in Latvia

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The number of patients injured slipping on the streets has increased significantly and the Emergency Medical Service (NMPD) brings a steady number of such patients to hospitals daily, LETA reported January 3. 

“The streets are very slippery and the result doesn't take long. The hospital is full, the admissions department is full,” the chief doctor of Traumatology and Orthopedics hospital Uģis Zariņš told LETA.

He said there were more than 100 patients and that the most critical situation was on Sunday. “For us, the influx is about five times the number of patients for which the admissions department is intended,” Zariņš said.

There are many patients who are surgically susceptible to treatment after the injuries.

Although the hospital is full, medics are trying to discharge everyone as quickly as possible to make room for future patients. Typical injuries include shoulder, hip, calf, wrist and ankle fractures. Patients of all ages are admitted.

The chief public relations officer of the Emergency Medical Service (NMPD), Sarmīte Buiķe, told LETA that on Sunday the number of calls from people injured while slipping on the streets was increasing rapidly. If an average of ten such patients were taken to hospitals on Friday and Saturday, it was 54 on Sunday. In most cases, these patients had leg and hand injuries, but in one serious case there was also a head injury. The victims were in different age groups.

 

 

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