Araujo, M.L.V.; Miranda, J.G.V.; Vasconcelos, R.N.; Cambui, E.C.B.; Rosário, R.S.; Macedo, M.C.F.; Bandeira, A.C.; Souza, M.S.P.L.; Silva, A.C.F.N.; Filho, A.S.N.; Murari, T.B.; Jorge, E.M.F.; Saba, H. A Critical Analysis of the COVID-19 Hospitalization Network in Countries with Limited Resources. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health2022, 19, 3872.
Araujo, M.L.V.; Miranda, J.G.V.; Vasconcelos, R.N.; Cambui, E.C.B.; Rosário, R.S.; Macedo, M.C.F.; Bandeira, A.C.; Souza, M.S.P.L.; Silva, A.C.F.N.; Filho, A.S.N.; Murari, T.B.; Jorge, E.M.F.; Saba, H. A Critical Analysis of the COVID-19 Hospitalization Network in Countries with Limited Resources. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19, 3872.
Araujo, M.L.V.; Miranda, J.G.V.; Vasconcelos, R.N.; Cambui, E.C.B.; Rosário, R.S.; Macedo, M.C.F.; Bandeira, A.C.; Souza, M.S.P.L.; Silva, A.C.F.N.; Filho, A.S.N.; Murari, T.B.; Jorge, E.M.F.; Saba, H. A Critical Analysis of the COVID-19 Hospitalization Network in Countries with Limited Resources. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health2022, 19, 3872.
Araujo, M.L.V.; Miranda, J.G.V.; Vasconcelos, R.N.; Cambui, E.C.B.; Rosário, R.S.; Macedo, M.C.F.; Bandeira, A.C.; Souza, M.S.P.L.; Silva, A.C.F.N.; Filho, A.S.N.; Murari, T.B.; Jorge, E.M.F.; Saba, H. A Critical Analysis of the COVID-19 Hospitalization Network in Countries with Limited Resources. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19, 3872.
Abstract
To effectively combat the COVID-19 pandemic, the state government of Bahia, Brazil, has distributed intensive and non-intensive care units along the nine regions that divide the state of Bahia, such that COVID-19 patients could be easily hospitalized in health care units located at the same regions where they live. However, the observed hospitalizations networks for COVID-19 patients shows that a considerable number of COVID-19 patients had to travel beyond their region of residence to be hospitalized. Hence, this study indicates that the current distribution of health care units in Bahia, Brazil, is not sufficient to effectively reduce the distances traveled by COVID-19 patients requiring hospitalization. We believe that such unnecessary travels to distant hospitals may put the sick patients as well as healthy people involved in the transportation process in risk, further delaying the stabilization of the COVID-19 pandemic in each region of the state of Bahia.
Keywords
Government; Hospitalization; Pandemics; Public policy; Transportation.
Subject
Public Health and Healthcare, Public Health and Health Services
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.