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By observing the Hungarian epidemic curve, it can be clearly identified that the worst part of the second wave, much more severe, began in late October, early November and affected the month of November the most. The highest number of new infections per day was reported at home on November 29 (6,819 people), but it was the month that the number of hospital admissions nearly doubled (from 4,000 to 7,800) and the number of patients on ventilators increased even more. (From 300 to more than 660 people).
Already from the November data, it was conceivable that this was the period when hospitals were exposed to the greatest load and hospital reports received in early November also confirmed this. The news came from the overflow and tension of the health care system. In October and the first days of November, the care of Covid patients and normal functioning, that is, surgeries and scheduled and elective interventions, were carried out simultaneously in inpatient health care institutions.
However, in the first week of November, even the operative tribe considered the burden on the care system to be so great due to the increase in the number of infected and coronavirus patients admitted to the intervening hospital. The Human Resources minister decided on November 7 to order the suspension of 10 deferred surgeries and designated almost all hospitals to care for coronavirus patients.
We can see this process in the CSO’s now updated data series. According to them, in November 2020, bed occupancy decreased significantly to 53% in active hospital care due to the cessation of deferred interventions.
And the rapid drop in coronavirus infection in the fall was also reflected in the workload of hospital wards. The CSO report highlights that in November 2020, the use of infectious diseases was the one that increased the most among the specialties that operate hospital beds compared to the previous month.
The workload in the field of infectology increased to such an extent last November that the actual occupancy of beds exceeded 140%. In other words, beds had to be included in the care of coronavirus patients who originally did not fulfill this purpose, but it was also a natural process in parallel with the increase in the epidemic curve and the increase in the number of hospitalized patients. However, the consequence of this (as we know from reports) is that the increasingly new care facilities do not offer the same conditions to patients as the institutions and departments designed and equipped to treat patients who were originally infected. The number of beds could be increased at that time in accordance with the infectious care, but not the number of professionals practicing the corresponding profession, so personnel from other areas were summoned and transferred. According to the news at the time, there were not enough infectologists, pulmonologists or internal medicine.
Cover image: A nurse dressed in a protective suit in a room enabled to receive patients infected with the coronavirus at St. John Hospital in the capital on December 15, 2020. Source: MTI / Zoltán Balogh
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