Macae, Brazil, Jan 30 (EFE).- Municipal officials and representatives of the British government inaugurated here Monday the first telemedicine center in South America.
Macae, in Rio de Janeiro state, is known as Brazil’s oil capital because of its proximity to offshore fields that account for 80 percent of the country’s oil production and 45 percent of its natural gas.
The center is the result of an agreement between local authorities and Britain, and will offer care not only for the inhabitants of this city but above all for thousands of workers on oil-drilling platforms that lie some 1 1/2 hours by helicopter from the nearest hospital.
The installations, inaugurated by British Trade Minister Ian Pearson and local Mayor Riverton Mussi, boast a long-distance care unit, tents for chemical and biological decontamination, and several robots for simulating medical procedures.
The center is also equipped for training doctors and caring for victims of serious accidents.
The simulators, robots that breathe, bleed and react like humans during surgical procedures, can represent widely differing medical symptoms and syndromes for the hands-on training of health-care professionals.
The center’s opening will aid and speed up care for thousands of workers on almost 500 oil-drilling platforms in the Campos basin, which lies in Atlantic Ocean waters off the coast of Rio de Janeiro state and produces an average of 1.3 million barrels per day of crude.
In case of accident or serious illness, patients will be diagnosed and start their treatments at a distance. If their transferral is necessary, their care will be quicker since hospital personnel will be standing by for their arrival to begin the necessary treatment.
In an inauguration day speech, the mayor of Macae said that the city has tripled its population since state-owned oil giant Petrobrás located its operational headquarters there.
“The city has been transformed, accomodating workers from all over the country and the world. Currently 10 percent of Macae’s inhabitants are foreigners,” Mussi noted.
