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Anyone who has already played with Dr. Maboul to introduce themselves as a nurse, with this dramatically ironic sentence, health workers protested that the Belgian government is recruiting completely unqualified people for nurses in advertisements. This is because Belgian healthcare is on the verge of collapse without exaggeration. More than 13,000 people have died from the coronavirus epidemic so far, the highest proportion in Europe.
In Belgium, although the number of COVID patients in intensive care units has decreased minimally in recent days (by a total of 4), the number of deaths has increased considerably. In the last 24 hours, 345 deaths have been registered, according to the RTBF. According to data from the Sciensano health service on November 9, the number of patients with COVID exceeded half a million (500,789) and the number of deaths 13,000 (13,055).
As you know: Belgium is a country of 11 million, which means that fewer people live there than in Hungary.
As a result of the shocking data and the disaster situation, Belgian hospitals crossed the so-called “Phase 2B”, which is the most serious alert level in Belgian healthcare.
According to current regulations, this means that the capacity of intensive care units will have to be increased by 25% more, but no one knows what will happen next in Belgium. This is not how they will be resolved either.
This was pointed out by Marc Noppen, director of the “UZ Brussel” hospital, in an interview with the newspaper “Le Soir”. “We don’t know if the government is planning anything after Phase 2B, although the numbers are clear. Around November 10, the intensive care units reach the limit of their performance. We will also cross the line in the first wave of the epidemic, forcing us to prepare for what will be after the last Phase 2B. ” said the director.
Not enough fans
Creating new places, if they can, alone will not solve the problems of the health care system, which has been under astonishing strain since March. Compared to the “Phase 2B” status, which means a total of 2000 + 500 intensive beds, 300 additional beds had to be mobilized, but there aren’t enough devices for these, specifically not enough fans.
“To create the new beds, we had to remodel each room, insulating them to stop air circulation. These rooms (not all) have patient tracking systems to which ventilators must be installed, but they lack essential items that are made in New Zealand and will be absent for at least another two weeks. ” explained Pierre Gillet, chief physician of the Liège CHU Hospital, to “Le Soir”.
They are untrained volunteers rather than qualified nurses.
But not only the machines are missing, but also the personnel. This is due, among other things, to the fact that a nurse in a normal hospital ward can have many more patients than in an intensive care unit. The other fundamental concern is that specially trained nurses would be needed in intensive care units, but the shortage is also serious.
The Belgian ultra-liberal government has tried to solve this problem by recruiting unskilled volunteers, for whose recruitment it has passed a law that has been the subject of protests across the country by trained nurses already working in the profession and, of course, doctors.
In one of the largest hospitals in Brussels, Erasmus, the nurses working there held a 24-hour protest.
“We are looking for people for hospital help who have already played with Dr. Maboul” ironically an inscription was published to the protesters who see that the help of unskilled volunteers is not really helpful, because without the right skills, this job is impossible. However, no one asked them.
(A board game called “Dr. Maboul” is extremely popular in Belgium; here you have to participate in a toy operation, among other things, and the winner is the one that can remove the most organs from a baby without causing pain. the baby is still in pain.)
While the Belgian government says that anyone can perform skilled nursing tasks, Naïma Amakran, permanent secretary of the largest nursing union (SETCA), told Le Soir that the issue of liability for possible errors raises a number of problems and this not the case with legislation passed at record speed. order. “We have nothing to deny, we don’t have enough nurses ” Naïma Amakran continued. “This is a very real problem. The absence is much higher among nurses than during the first wave, COVID also does not forgive them. “
The union leader said the government would not consult them, although it would have been important to seek the opinion of those who work in the fields. According to the daily DH, the problem is that the nurses contract COVID themselves, leaving them without work. Between March and October 2020, more than 7,500 cases were recorded among medical and nursing staff.
In addition to the volunteers, some medical students and nursing students have also been admitted to hospitals, according to a post on Twitter from a French internet girlfriend who is studying nursing in Belgium and has to work without pay in the COVID department of a hospital, which ”They are reserved.
Tent in the parking lot.
Radio Rfi.fr reported on the conditions at the CHU hospital in Liège in a dramatic report. Antoine Gruselin, the hospital’s communications chief, spoke in the report about the fact that the hospital not only has COVID patients in the intensive care unit, but also non-COVID, the number of which has doubled since the spring period. “THE the problem is not only that there are enough beds, but also that there are not enough staff, equipment and doctors. “
The situation in Verviers, 20 km from Liège, is even worse, as there is no hospital space left, the hospital is full, so Additional tent spaces were built in the parking lot adjacent to the hospital.
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