“That Tuesday, April 29, 2003, I was here,” says Pablo Ledesma, with his index finger resting on his desk, in the office of the Directorate of the “Orlando Alassia” Children’s Hospital in Santa Fe, on Mendoza at 4100. He pediatrician specialized in clinical practice at that time doing his medical residency. Today he is in charge of one of the most important hospitals in the province, where hundreds of boys and girls come daily in search of well-being and health.
The Alassia is a symbol of the 2003 flood. It was left under water when the Salado River advanced furiously and covered a third of the city of Santa Fe. It had been created four years before that fateful Tuesday, April 29, with the signing of a provincial decree, in 1999. And it was inaugurated on August 5 of that year, the date on which four years later it would be reopened, after the passage of the Salado. “I was part of the move from the old Gutiérrez hospital to the new Alassia,” Ledesma recalls. “We move patients in two days,” he says. At that time he could not imagine what would happen four years later, when the hospital had to be evacuated due to the advance of the water.
For the evacuation, a large operation was first mounted to refer the patients to other health centers, including those of Intensive Care. They came out in waist-deep water. Then an attempt was made to rescue the most expensive part, some of the instruments. But a lot was lost. Very much. And when Salado left it had to be rebuilt.
April 2003 were painful, confusing, humid, gray days. El Salado entered through a gap in the embankment at the Las Flores Hippodrome and advanced west to the center of the city. People didn’t understand anything. He must have escaped the water as best he could. Some didn’t make it. There were 23 deaths from direct causes and more than a hundred from collateral damage. Thousands of victims and million-dollar material damage. People lost everything.
That April 29, 2003, Ledesma had arrived early in Santa Fe from San Jerónimo Norte, the city where he had always resided since moving from Córdoba. “I didn’t fully understand the geography of the city, where the Salado came from,” he recalls. “They told me that the hand was tough, that I should pay attention to what was happening. That day when I arrived at the hospital I ran into the engineer in charge of Physical Resources and he told me: ‘Today the hospital is flooding.’ And I thought what everyone else does: ‘This guy is exaggerating.’
“I went to the office and followed the routine of the day,” Ledesma continues his story. While I was looking for a book in the Library I heard Mayor Marcelo Álvarez on the radio saying that everything was fine and that people should not worry, and the teacher Ana Salgado offering the Zaspe school in Santa Rosa de Lima to accommodate evacuees. Meanwhile, people appeared to carry sandbags saying that we were going to flood. At 11 in the morning they sent me to tour the rain evacuee centers in the western cordon. Before I had to cross the Carretero bridge for a personal reason and I was afraid because of the force of the water that seemed like it was going to cover it. “I felt like the whole bridge was moving.”
A doctor walks with water up to his knees in the hospital, among the people who tried to save him by placing sandbags and the flooded neighbors. Alejandro Villar (Archive). “After doing the checks in all the evacuee centers we went to the Psychiatric Hospital. It was ten o’clock at night. The telephone operator, who knew that I was from here, from Alassia, told me: ‘Look, there’s your hospital.’ And she points me to the television. I could not believe it. At two in the afternoon the water had begun to enter. He entered suddenly. They were able to get all the patients out. But everything was lost,” says Ledesma.
“It wasn’t until August that we returned to work at the hospital,” says who today is the director of Alassia; more precisely on August 5, the same date it had been inaugurated.
-How is the hospital today, 21 years after the flood?
-Despite the ups and downs of the country and after the different government actions, in general terms the hospital is good, nothing is missing. But the hospital must help him because he was deteriorating and he needs growth.
Increased demand
Then Ledesma separates between building and infrastructure growth and growth in demand and services. Regarding the first, he says that “it suffered aging and loss of value that we are trying to recover. But on the other hand, the hospital grew a lot. We came from Gutiérrez (old hospital) with 15 subspecialties and today we have 32, and before the end of the year we will add two more. “This increased the complexity and quality of care.”
Today Alassia is a benchmark in pediatric health in the entire north-central part of the province. But the demand also includes patients from other neighboring provinces who come to be treated here. “They come from Santiago del Estero, Chaco and for some time now, from Entre Ríos,” lists Ledesma. “Between 40 and 50 percent are patients who come from Greater Santa Fe, while the rest come from the interior or neighboring provinces.”
Underwater. The hospital invaded by Salado. Amancio Alem. The cold season is coming soon and with it the demand for hospital care for respiratory diseases usually increases. Ledesma estimates that vaccination against the respiratory syncytial virus, which is the main cause of bronchiolitis and pneumonia, will have a positive impact on public health, reducing care, hospitalizations and treatment costs. “But we will only see this impact next year, because this vaccination is very new,” he says. “Therefore, for this year we prepare as always, to serve everyone who needs it.”
“Since the hospital has not grown physically, we have to crowd together. “We are looking at where to add beds,” says Ledesma. So, “in the intermediate care hospitalization room, which was designed to have two beds, more than 10 years ago we added a crib, to have three patients per room. “We have no other possibility.”
See alsoZazpe, the school that was not going to flood and was under water “The problem is that the city needs more pediatric care beds. Mira y López had 16 beds that contained a lot of the northern population and was closed. And the New Iturraspe does not work as expected. So we are meeting with the provincial Health authorities to reorganize pediatric care in the remaining city,” explains Ledesma. Because today “we have an increase in demand that we should not receive, because we are a third level of complexity hospital,” she says. “Fever, a boy who has parasites, must be treated in health centers, and today we have them running through the corridors of the guard,” he explains. “And this cannot be happening,” he concludes.
Plays
The new guard of the hospital stands up here today. Archive. The Alassia currently has three fronts of expansion work. Two of them were reactivated these days while the rehabilitation area remains paralyzed. The two sectors that are being built are the new guard, the oncohematology area and a new space for the care of congenital heart diseases. The work to enhance the hospital covers more than 3 thousand square meters and means an investment of more than 8,000 million pesos for the Province.
