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According to the central registry office for intensive care beds in Germany, there are fewer free and ready-to-use intensive care places in hospitals than previously assumed. “At the national level, clinics report that free beds are available, although some cannot be used due to understaffing,” said Christian Karagiannidis, spokesman for the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive and Emergency Medicine (Divi). “Welt am Sonntag”. And: “We are lulled into a false sense of security by the number of free intensive care beds.”
Divi keeps the record, showing free intensive care beds across the country every day. This should also allow a transfer from heavily used clinics to houses with capacity. However, the capacity of the bed alone is not decisive: a patient with ventilated Covid 19 only needs up to five nurses. They are particularly deficient.
Divi urges clinics to be honest
Karagiannidis asked all clinics to report “honestly” about their free beds. “The number is the basis of political decisions,” he warned. “Some CEOs are not aware of the great social responsibility they have with this report.” Divi represents more than 3,000 intensive care physicians and nurses currently working in intensive care units.
In the last two to three weeks, his organization has received more and more comments from emergency physicians across Germany who said: “I have difficulty accommodating my patients in clinics, although the registry in the region shows us dozens of free beds.” . The reports were then randomly verified at individual clinics.
Saarland Prime Minister Tobias Hans also fears that the intensive capacity of German hospitals will not be sufficient during the corona pandemic. “The situation is terrifying and alarming: many of the 1,900 hospitals in Germany could soon collapse,” said the CDU politician from “Bild am Sonntag”.
Especially now, when every place of intensive care and ventilation is urgently needed in the second corona wave, clinics are no longer stocked, wards are closed, and emergency rooms are canceled. “The reason is that there is a lack of nursing staff or is sick.”
Politics wants better distribution based on the “cloverleaf principle”
The clinics need urgent support, Hans said. “In addition to staff shortages, hospitals are threatened with financial collapse.” Therefore, as at the beginning of the pandemic, flat fees must be paid “for the clinics to be financially secure in the weeks and months to come.” In addition, the federal government must start a “strong new foster care program.”
To delay a possible bottleneck in the capacity of hospitals in Germany for as long as possible, the federal and state governments are currently working on a new concept. It is based on the so-called “cloverleaf principle”. According to this, intensive care patients must be distributed among federal states according to a certain distribution principle if capacities are scarce, despite potentially long transport routes. To this end, Germany will be divided into five regions in which patient transport will be organized centrally.
