The situation in intensive care units in Bonn Hospitals expect more Covid-19 patients
Bonn · The situation in Bonn's intensive care units is expected to get worse. The speaker of the German Society for Internal Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine says the situation is "very strained”.
When it comes to severe cases of Covid-19, it takes about ten days from the time of infection until the patient winds up in an intensive care unit. For clinics, this means the rising number of cases spells out bleak prospects. For each Covid-19 patient requiring ventilation, five nursing staff are needed.
The situation is deteriorating elsewhere as well. On Tuesday evening, a Belgian patient was admitted to the University Hospital in Bonn. Carsten Hermes, spokesman for the nursing section of the German Society for Internal Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine, confirms that the situation is also worsening in the intensive care units in Bonn: The situation is "very strained": "Some of the staff are quite nervous. People are starting to think about how long the level of treatment can be maintained.” And this, even though the situation with medical facilities in Bonn is comparatively good.
- The numbers: On Wednesday, the city reported that there were 19 Covid-19 patients in intensive care units in Bonn. Almost all of them are in the University Hospital, and eight are on ventilators. Overall, the number of Covid-19 patients and those in intensive care units is increasing, explained Wolfgang Holzgreve, Medical Director and Chairman of the Board of the University Hospital on Wednesday. This also applies to the most sophisticated form of ventilation, the so-called ECMO. With a total of 130 intensive care beds, which could be increased to 200 if necessary, the resources at the University Hospital are apparently still far from their limits. But Holzgreve also says: "We expect an increase and are prepared for it.” Gerrit Schuhmacher, senior physician at the Department of Anaesthesia/Intensive and Pain Medicine at the Bonn Community Hospital, has a similar assessment of the situation: "Experience has shown that the course of illness with Covid-19 patients can deteriorate rapidly, so that today's figures only give a glimpse of what is happening right now.” Hospital superintendent Christoph Bremekamp adds: "There are already signs of an increase in the number of Covid patients being treated in isolation on a normal ward.” And Yon-Dschun Ko, Medical Director of the Johanniter Clinics in Bonn, also says: "We expect more intensive care patients that also need to be on ventilators.” Christina Fuhrmann, spokeswoman of the hospital Helios Klinikum Bonn/Rhein-Sieg, known to most Bonn residents as Malteser Hospital, expresses herself similarly: "We expect that in the coming weeks the cases of Covid-19 patients requiring intensive care will increase.”
- Nursing staff: While the supply of protective masks and respirators is not a pressing issue according to the Bonn University Hospital management, the lack of personnel is an underlying problem: "As everywhere in Germany there is a shortage of nursing staff," says Holzgreve. "We are training additional personnel to be prepared for further increases in intensive care patients," says the head of the University Hospital. Also, "to a limited extent" within the hospital, personnel will be relocated to where the need is greatest. "However, we already have over 130 more nurses in 2019 than in 2018, before the Covid-19 pandemic struck,” Holzgreve explains. "At present, we have no shortage of capacity," explains Christoph Bremekamp. If hospital staff become infected or have to go into quarantine, this exacerbates the staffing situation, but this has only happened in a few cases in the hospitals in Bonn.
- Surgeries: "Operations are only postponed when there is no alternative," says Holzgreve. This is a rare occurrence at the University Hospital, and at the other hospitals as well. If it does come to this and income losses are the consequence, his colleague Yon Jun Ko believes they should receive more political support as they cannot carry on with normal patient operations as they did in pre-pandemic times.
(Orig. text: Rüdiger Franz / Translation: Carol Kloeppel)
