The Northern Lisbon University Hospital Centre (CHULN) treated about 2,500 patients with Covid-19 last year. Of this total, 450 patients were treated in CHULN intensive care units, 50 of them using ECMO (Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation), the highest numbers in the Lisbon region and the highest in the whole country. The survival rate in the CHULN ICUs is 78%.
In the last weeks, CHULN had eight intensive care units exclusively dedicated to Covid patients, of which five are new units, in a total of 69 beds. A plan that now begins to be reconverted in a phased manner to non-covid activity, which has resumed priority surgeries and outpatient surgery.
The ER of the Northern Lisbon University Hospital Centre dedicated to respiratory diseases attended about 31 thousand patients year. More than half (55%) came from outside the reference area of the CHULN. The ER at Santa Maria Hospital did not close a single day and responded to suspected Covid patients in the metropolitan area of Lisbon and the Western region, but also to users from Leiria, Santarém, Alentejo and the Algarve.
Nearly a third (29%) of the visits resulted from referrals from INEM. The rate of positivity in CHULN's Covid emergency room was 13%, while 75% of patients tested negative for Sars-Cov-2. Eleven percent of patients did not need to be tested and only 1% of cases were inconclusive.
In total, the CHULN Clinical Pathology laboratory performed more than Covid-19 155,000 screening tests, the majority in an urgent context, but also on external patients. The service also provided support to other hospitals and homes in the southern region.
Of the total tests performed, around 10,000 were carried out by CHULN professionals. The Hospital Centre has also vaccinated around 5,000 professionals, 4,500 of whom have already completed the full vaccination with the two doses. The infection rate among professionals has dropped by 95% in recent weeks.
The Board of Directors thanks all professionals for their high competence and spirit of commitment, which make CHULN an absolutely structural part of the Portuguese healthcare system.
Northern Lisbon University Hospital Centre, E.P.E., 2 March 2021,
The Board of Directors.
