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14. November 2020-12: 54 Clock
by Cordula Robeck
With his declaration that if necessary, employees of clinics and nursing homes who have tested positive for the virus must also work, the Minister of Health started a delicate discussion. You can see the statement in the video.
Even the next day, the minister was stuck with it: In the first Corona wave, so many caregivers who tested positive failed that care was no longer guaranteed at the time. That is why he supports his announcement to allow those who have tested positive to also work under very special protective measures, with daily tests and FFP 2 masks. But Spahn emphasizes: “This is the exception. The last thing that is is the request of the minister to work on those who tested positive. “
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In some clinics this is apparently already part of everyday life.
In Bremen and Bavaria, nurses who are already infected with the coronavirus continue to work in wards due to a lack of staff in some clinics and homes, treating infected patients and residents there, reports the care chamber. And this could soon become everyday life elsewhere as well. The use of infected nurses and caregivers during the first Corona wave was already common practice not only in Italy. This is also currently being done in our neighboring country Belgium – the number of infections here has recently been dramatically high.
Intensive Care Nurse: “Everyone would have to decide that for themselves”
Stefan Lenkeit has been an intensive care nurse at the Bonn University Clinic for some 20 years, and has also cared for Covid patients there. The staff is not yet on edge. Lenkeit himself would continue to work if he were infected but had no severe symptoms. The nursing staff are already wearing full protective clothing.
RKI recommends: “In absolutely exceptional cases, care is only conceivable for Covid-19 patients”
Even the Robert Koch Institute now recommends making exceptions. Until now, disease surveillance experts have recommended “immediate release from work” and self-isolation as soon as the caregiver shows symptoms of illness. But now it is said: if there is a clearly noticeable shortage of staff, nurses and nurses who tested positive could also care for sick patients. As long as they are not too sick for that. And there is exactly this understaffing.
Great staff shortage in German clinics
The number of Covid-19 patients who need to be treated in intensive care units is apparently not increasing as fast as feared: According to the DIVI intensive care registry, there were a total of 3,127 people on Wednesday, 68 more than the day before. . However, many clinics are reaching their limits: lack of staff. And: protective material is apparently becoming scarce, nurses report that some protective masks are not thrown away after a shift, but are simply reprocessed with steam. The danger of nursing personnel becoming infected increases.
“Allowing people infected with corona to continue working is the political oath of disclosure”
Eugen Brysch, president of the Patient Protection Foundation, is angry at Spahn’s proposal. Instead, it requests that the current testing and quarantine rules be changed. Requires all employees in homes and hospitals to perform a rapid test every day; then an initial result is available after 20 minutes. Of course, you must follow a real PCR test. However, apart from the fact that rapid tests are not yet available everywhere, there is often a lack of trained personnel for practical application.
Support to Spahn from experts and policy
In Corona Talk on RTL / ntv, the suggestion by epidemiologist Timo Ullrichs Spahn also mentions a feasible path “in an emergency situation, because if infected personnel were to go into quarantine along with all contact persons in the work environment, they would soon be left behind. without staff. ” (You can see the talk in the video). The support also of the SPD health expert Karl Lauterbach: “You could get into a situation where you reject people who need to be ventilated because you don’t have enough staff, then these people die or if you use staff who work despite the infection In such a situation, Spahn is right, of course, then people could not die. ” Lauterbach says in the RTL interview.
Apparently, Chancellor Merkel had also theoretically toyed with this option with the prime minister during the first wave of Corona. At the time, Merkel was still against it. Now she, too, might change her mind; after all, he still hasn’t called his minister of health.
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