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Irene Boeddinghaus, an oncologist at Life Vincent Pallotti Hospital in Cape Town, said that patients were much sicker than in the first wave. The availability of beds in the ICU was terrible and the doctors and nurses were burned and sick with Covid, he said. Netcare CEO Richard Friedland said the company’s hospitals were nearly full because the simultaneous escalation of Covid cases in the Eastern Cape, Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal has been nearly twice as fast as during the first wave.
“As a result of the high patient volumes, there will unfortunately be some delays in seeking treatment in some of our emergency departments,” he said. Netcare hospitals are seeing increased oxygenation demand from sick patients compared to the first wave, and there is growing alarm about possible oxygen shortages that have led to rationing in some public hospitals. Eleanor Roberts, Western Cape president of SA’s Democratic Nursing Organization, said nurses in the public and private sectors were under siege as they faced double pressure from sicker patients and oxygen shortages.
“Instead of having a person on oxygen for hours, hospitals now use oxygen sparingly. In some cases, patients are given oxygen for a short time, just to stabilize them before it is removed and given. to more needy patients, “he said. . The South African Medical Association confirmed that lack of oxygen was one of the problems that caused stress to doctors.
Dr. Andrea Mendelsohn, a senior Western Cape medical official, wrote in an open letter to Cape Town this week: “Once the beds are full and the oxygen is depleted, we are rapidly approaching that point, then my hospital and many others will not be able to help. They will be cleaning stations looking for bodies. This is my nightmare and yours.
“If hypoxic patients, where there is a lack of oxygen in the blood, are placed on a waiting list for high-flow nasal oxygen, it is very likely that they are waiting to die, he wrote, appealing to people to wear masks, practice the social distancing and socializing outdoors.
Dr Katrin Stüve, a senior internal medicine specialist at Helderberg Hospital in Somerset West, said people were “much sicker this time, with patients in their 30s and 50s, no comorbidities, more critical and succumbing to the disease.” He added: “In our hospital we have a small oxygen tank that used to be filled once a week, but now it is filled every day.”
Stüve faces daily decisions about who to put high-flow oxygen on or transfer to Tygerberg Hospital for an ICU bed. “It’s one of the most heartbreaking decisions. I have to make,” he said.
“Sometimes it’s easy … if, for example, you have a young patient who is very ill and has no comorbidities compared to an older person who has multiple comorbidities. The young person has a better chance of survival when placed on a ventilator, but it becomes difficult when they get the same score. “
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