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While the spread of the new coronavirus has not stopped, the number of medical institutions that cannot keep up with the rapidly increasing number of infected patients and cannot provide emergency medical care to patients with other illnesses is increasing. In Chiba prefecture, only about 12.5% of corona patients who need treatment from the 16th were hospitalized. There is an urgent voice from the medical field in the prefecture that “Corona’s medical care and emergency medical care has already collapsed.”
Nurses considering accepting patients based on information from the public health center (part of the image is processed)
◆ Age and underlying disease are judging factors
“Most of the people who are adjusting their hospitalization need to be hospitalized by emergency transport.” On the morning of the 14th, a room in the infection control department of Chiba University Hospital (Chuo-ku, Chiba city). The head nurse was busy confirming the status of nearly 100 infected people, which she encountered the day before, with the person in charge at the Chiba City Health Center on the phone.
“This person has a respiratory disorder.” “I am concerned that 5-7 days have passed since the start.” When the head nurse wrote down the symptoms of people in need of preferential treatment on the board and examined which patients could be accepted, Hidetoshi Inokari’s mobile phone, who was standing next to him, rang. It was reported that a positive corona was confirmed when a patient who came to the outpatient clinic with another symptom was examined just in case.
When Mr. Inokari looked at the board, he muttered: “Age or underlying disease, what should be prioritized?” And he went to coordination with other departments.
Nurses caring for critically ill patients (center) infected with the new corona virus in the intensive treatment room (part of the image is processed, provided by Chiba University Hospital)
The hospital plans to have 60 beds exclusively for Corona, which is one of the largest in the prefecture. At noon on the 15th, 25 patients were accepted, but all tend to have moderate or severe disease and their symptoms tend to worsen and the number of nurses tends to be insufficient. In particular, in the intensive treatment room (ICU), the five beds for critically ill patients requiring artificial respirators and the like remain full, and will soon be expanded to eight beds.
In the ICU, a patient with a crown needs to be treated by two or three nurses. The hospital says that instead of increasing the number of ICU nurses, which currently has 66, to 100, the number of beds in the emergency department will be reduced from 4 to 5 in order to expand the beds for seriously ill Corona .
◆ “A system in which all hospitals play a role”
In winter, emergency transportation increases due to myocardial infarction and stroke, but the hospital has increased the number of cases of refusing to accept emergency patients other than corona patients. Other hospitals in the prefecture are said to be in the same situation, and Kotaro Yokote, the hospital director, expressed a sense of crisis, saying: “Corona has started bringing emergency services and the situation where it cannot save lives. it’s imminent. “
Some medical institutions that provide corona health care in the prefecture limit the number of dedicated beds to a few beds for reasons such as measures against hospital infection, and the acceptance status of patients varies from hospital to hospital. “Even if corona treatment is not possible, we need a system in which all hospitals can play a role, such as accepting other emergency patients and accepting convalescent corona patients,” said the director of the Yokote hospital. (Rieko Ota)
