A reflection on the pandemic and burns in Peru

Since March 15, the quarantine began in Peru, we observe the country's attention to the health system and its actions focused on the treatment and containment of COVID 19; We saw the prioritization of the III level of health care, that is, of high complexity hospitals, while at the level of health personnel, the stay at home of those over 60 years of age or of those who had any morbidity. In summary: attention to a single pathology with fewer human resources, however, this is not the objective of this article to analyze the effectiveness of the assumed health strategy, but to see burns in this context.

These 90-day quarantine measures, followed by the restriction on the opening of schools, have generated two situations: that children have to stay at home longer with the risk of being burned and the consequent fear of their parents of approaching them. hospitals for the possible contagion they represent. We have, for example, a report of April 21 from the Instituto de Salud del Niño-San Borja, which indicates an increase of 30% of children burned during confinement, who due to the current context cannot undergo a complete treatment.

It corresponds therefore to educate and alert our population, to generate proactive behaviors, both at the level of the child population and the adult population. For children, ANIQUEM, in collaboration with COANIQUEM from Chile and other civil organizations from Bolivia and Honduras, has started the Interactive campaign with the story of the cat Santi and his friends Camila and Lucas, an interesting campaign to improve behaviors in our children from the who may have read pages ahead.

Likewise, ANIQUEM is carrying out an awareness campaign regarding burn injuries in the population of the provinces, through radio interviews on local stations, in which we provide a message of primary prevention (before the injury occurs), secondary (achieve that the damage is not greater) and tertiary prevention (which implies one of the central objectives of ANIQUEM, which is to achieve the maximum of physical and psychological recovery of burn survivors).

Due to the poor results of the health strategies adopted in our country, change is necessary to better face the pandemic and other types of injuries that may arise. The full participation of the first level of health care is necessary with the active help of the community, private companies, the state, in order to avoid that patients become complicated and reach level III. The national government is responsible for the proper conduct of health care and not only blaming the general population.

Finally, in this socio-economic context of a pandemic, with 70% informality, loss of employment, prolonged confinement with the majority of family members staying at home and the health services taken over for patients with COVID 19, it is It is very important to promote preventive actions for both physical and psychological health to achieve the highest possible rate of well-being.