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reGerman hospitals expect a large flood of corona patients in the coming weeks. “The infection situation is worrying,” said the president of the German Hospital Association, Gerald Gaß, of the FAZ. “We are confident that we will see a second wave in intensive care units in November that will bring in more than twice as many patients as that first wave in spring.”
On Friday, 1,839 Covid 19 patients were treated in German intensive care units, 143 more than on Thursday. Half of the patients were ventilated. Of the total of 29,221 registered intensive care beds, 7,539 were not occupied.
Gass stressed that the focus on Covid-19 cases for other patients means that so-called elective operations and treatments must be suspended to make room in normal and intensive care units. As in the initial phase of the epidemic, “it will certainly be necessary to postpone services that can be planned and are not medically urgent,” Gaß announced.
Cancellations were not made to the same extent everywhere, “but regionally and gradually this will be inevitable.” Stopping treatment affects not only patients but also hospitals, which do not make money on empty beds. “We need financial compensation like the free assignment again. Without this we run the risk that the uncertainty will spread in the clinics, which is already noticeable, ”warned Gaß. “It is imperative that the reserve parachute components are reactivated as soon as possible.”
A similar approach can be taken with the additional costs caused by the pandemic.
A corresponding regulation had been omitted in the partial blockade agreed by the federal and state governments, Gaß criticized. “We would have liked this clear commitment when we made the resolutions on Wednesday.”
Gerald Gaß, President of the German Hospital Society
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Image: Picture-Alliance
Premiums for beds that remained vacant expired at the end of September. A spokesman for the federal Minister of Health, Jens Spahn (CDU), said that there was a follow-up regulation in the new Hospital Future Law. The crown-related revenue declines in 2020 could be “offset in the context of individual hospital negotiations between the contracting parties,” that is, between clinics and health insurance companies.
A similar approach can be taken with the additional costs caused by pandemics, for example for protective equipment. Contracting parties at the federal level are expected to determine compensation details before the end of the year; In addition to the DKG, they are also the umbrella association of legal health insurance companies and the association of private health insurance companies.
Total concentration of all resources in the protection of the population.
On the contrary, Gaß made it clear that additional legal redress is required. As in the spring, lengthy examinations of clinics by the medical service of health insurance companies should be reduced. Equally urgent is the rapid payment of bills by health insurance to ensure the liquidity of the homes: “In this worsening of the situation, clinics need their backs free in economic terms to be able to face the medical task,” he demanded the president of the hospital.
Gaß: “As in the spring, hospital officials must be able to trust that the total concentration of all resources on protecting the population will not make their own location economically difficult.”
The German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (Divi) had previously spoken of an “emergency situation” and had called on politicians to reposition a protective screen over hospitals. In the new measures taken by the federal government and prime ministers, it was “lost” to ask hospitals to reduce their regular care through a regulation to reduce their regular care, as in March and April, said Divi President Uwe Janssens , In Berlin.
Liquidity problem in six weeks
According to Janssens, switching to the Corona operation in clinics would also alleviate the nursing shortage in intensive care units. Because anesthesia nurses who are not required in operating rooms have the same training as those in intensive care units. There are still enough intensive care beds available, especially since capacity was expanded with state support during the Corona crisis, he said. But there are not enough staff to serve them. Even in normal times, 20 to 30 percent of beds cannot be ‘looked after’.
Like Gaß, Janssens also demanded that there should be “financial compensation for the hospitals” immediately so that they could cut back on regular operations: “If we close now, it will actually be church houses or private houses within six weeks face a liquidity problem. “
