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While the Robert Koch Institute reports 11,409 new cases of corona, intensive care physicians are warning of a “dramatic shortage of nurses.” Free intensive care beds and fans are useless if staff are lacking.
According to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), health authorities reported 11,409 new corona infections in one day. On Tuesday a week ago, the number was 6,868. On Saturday, 14,714 new infections were reached, a new record since the start of the corona pandemic in Germany. However, the current values are only partially comparable with those of the spring, as significantly more tests are now being carried out and more infections are discovered as a result.
According to the RKI, a total of 449,275 people across Germany have been infected with the virus since the start of the pandemic. The number of deaths related to the virus rose from 42 to 10,098 as of Monday. The RKI estimates that around 326,700 people have recovered.
“Dramatic shortage of nurses”
In view of the sharp increase in the number of cases, intensive care physicians are warning of bottlenecks in the care of Covid 19 patients due to a lack of nursing staff. “We have a dramatic shortage of nurses,” said the president of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (DIVI), Uwe Janssens, the newspapers of the Funke media group. Now there is “enough capacity for free intensive care beds and fans.” But that alone does not help “if we do not have staff to care for patients.” Roughly estimated, there was a shortage of 3,500 to 4,000 intensive care specialists nationwide, Janssens says.
The president of the Marburger Bund Doctors Union, Susanne Johna, hopes that staff shortages in hospitals will soon become apparent. “Between six and nine percent of those infected today will need hospital treatment in two weeks,” predicted Johna. “Actually, you need a nurse for every seriously ill Covid patient in the intensive care unit,” Funke told the newspapers.
The president of the German Hospital Association (DKG), Gerald Gaß, also described the bottleneck in the nursing staff as “the central challenge when the number of patients increases”. The clinics would then have to reorganize staff and, as in the spring, focus on treating urgent cases, Gass told the Funke-Blätter. “We will have to adjust to waiting times for standard care, as well as the transfer of patients from highly contaminated locations to more distant hospitals,” Gass said.
WHO also warns of overcrowded clinics
Meanwhile, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) also warned against overloading intensive care units, especially in Europe and North America. “Many countries in the Northern Hemisphere are currently experiencing a worrying increase in hospital admissions and cases,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. In some places, intensive care units filled up quickly.
More than 40 million infections have been detected worldwide since the beginning of the pandemic. More than a million people have died from the Covid-19 disease. Tedros expressed his understanding that many people experience a certain “pandemic fatigue.” The psychological and physical stress of working from home and the distance with friends and family are high. Still, people shouldn’t give up now. However, above all, health systems and the people who work for them must be protected.
