A representative from Kaunas Hospital on the youngest COVID-19 victim: went to bed a week ago

It is true that, as Saulius Tvirbutas, Chief Communication Specialist at LSMU Kaunas Hospital, said, this person also had severe comorbidity, which he could not pin down due to the protection of patient data.

He was admitted to the Department of Infectious Diseases at LSMU Kaunas Hospital, where his life died out, just over a week before his death.

Critically ill patients are not just the elderly

Although the coronavirus is more likely to kill the lives of older people (so far the youngest coronavirus victim in Lithuania was 47 years old), middle-aged people without chronic illnesses are also experiencing more and more serious complications.

“If in the first wave it seemed that the disease was dangerous only for the elderly, now the contingent is expanding. We have a wider range of patients in the hospital: there are a number of seriously ill patients between the ages of 50 and 59, there are also those in the age group of 40-49 who did not have chronic diseases, and we get it because the coronavirus is complicated in pneumonia. During the first wave, there were only a few of them, most were already respectable old patients with very serious comorbidities: after various strokes, heart attacks, diabetics, nursing, brought from the foci of the nursing home. At the time, it seemed like it was just a problem of the older people and for the younger people it all ends easily.

Now the age of the seriously ill is changing, “said S. Tvirbutas.

More than a hundred and a half patients with COVID-19 a day

LSMU Kaunas Hospital is the Provisional Capital’s main medical institution, treating patients with severe COVID-19 illness. For a while she was the only one combat hospital in Kaunas county. Other county hospitals are already ready to receive some of these patients.

S. Tvirbutas noted that the number of critically ill patients in his hospital has increased significantly recently.

“We had 6 places combat resuscitation patients, and now we’ve taken over the “clean” resuscitation where we started putting them. Currently, there are an average of 150 patients a day. This fall, we also have 3-4 children infected with coronavirus, but they generally contract COVID-19 easily and are admitted to the Department of Infectious Diseases for other diseases, ”noted S. Tvirbutas.

According to data from Wednesday morning, a total of 157 patients with COVID-19 disease were treated at LSMU Kaunas Hospital. The disease was difficult for everyone, with complications. More than half of these patients required oxygen and 10 required artificial lung ventilation. The latter are treated in the Resuscitation and Intensive Care Unit. They need special care.

As mentioned, some of these patients had no comorbidities. They were admitted to the hospital due to complications from COVID-19, aggravated pneumonia, lack of oxygen, and shortness of breath.

For some time, seriously ill patients have been treated not only by infectologists but also by specialists in other fields. On the one hand, this is due to a sharp increase in the number of patients for whom there would not be enough infectious disease specialists for all, and on the other hand, it is already known that doctors are capable of treating COVID-19 and do not have specific knowledge of infectology.

The hospital has not yet treated such seriously ill patients

S. Tvirbutas noted that currently the number of COVID-19 patients in the hospital is actually incomparably higher than the number of people with influenza during the heat of the flu season.

“I see how people write Facebooke: “There were so many thousands of flu kovidu I’m not that sick yet, so it’s worth panicking. “

But I still haven’t seen that many Infectious Diseases Corps patients in my practice. In the cold season, when the flu epidemic broke out, when respiratory diseases and various viral infections worsened, causing an increase in the number of patients in our country, the adult ward cared for a maximum of about 40 people up to date. patients. In such cases, doctors have already said that heavy loads are really a year of intense work.

Now, during the coronavirus pandemic, we already have 150 seriously ill patients in the same body per day, and the number is growing. Additionally, COVID-19 results in patients being treated longer, harder to treat, and more severe than those facing complications from the flu or cold.

When there are complications from the flu, we stay with us an average of a week and he gets better, so he continues to be treated at home. Due to complications from COVID-19, people fall asleep in the hospital for two weeks and up to a month. Those complications are more serious when you can’t get through treatment at home because the patient needs oxygen therapy all the time.

There has never been such a need for oxygen therapy as now. The hospital has not yet treated such seriously ill patients. Now we write fewer people than we accept. This shows that the pandemic is really threatening, “warned the interlocutor.