Health South-East Responds to Crown Crisis – NRK Oslo and Viken – Local News, TV and Radio

Health South-East has looked at the prognosis for NIPH and looked at how many patients they can expect in the future.

Looking ahead four weeks, we can expect around 620 hospitalized in our region and 150 in intensive care, says Executive Director Cathrine Lofthus at Health South-East.

It highlights that the FHI model does not take into account the strict measures that have been introduced, as well as future vaccination.

– We hope that the measures that have been introduced will take effect, and then we will not go so high, says Lofthus. But he argues that they can if the FHI model hits, even if it becomes demanding.

Half have a British mutation

Currently, there are 195 coronary patients admitted to Helse Sør-Øst, 52 of them in the intensive care unit and 34 of them on respiratory treatment.

– We have a situation where approximately. 90 percent of hospitalized patients have the British variant. Through studies from England, we have been told that it has higher infectivity and may lead to a more severe course, says Lofthus.

They also see younger coronary patients. Several were born in the 90s.

– They have symptoms of varying severity. There are some who are not so bad and others who are in the intensive care unit. In general, we now see a lower average age, he says.

Several hospitals in yellow emergency

Several of the company’s hospitals are on yellow alert. This means that they postpone some planned activity, especially operations.

These are in yellow preparation:

• OUS. They knock down approx. 15 percent of your planned surgery and staff reassignment.
• Ahus. They have dropped from 20 to 12 operating rooms.
• Bærum Hospital. There they have gone from 8 to 5 operating rooms.
• Lovisenberg has eliminated both planned outpatient surgery and outpatient surgery
• The deacon’s house is on a yellow level and has collapsed with two operational teams. The hospital collapses with two more operational teams on Monday. Both bedposts and intensive care have increased.
• Østfold Hospital has been reassigned, but much activity has not slowed down yet.
• Vestfold has reduced its surgical capacity by 10 to 20 percent.

Telemark, Sørlandet and Innlandet have fewer infections. It is also noticeable in hospitals. There is less demand and more normal operation.

Lofthus emphasizes that they only postpone operations that they do not consider urgent. No cancer surgery is postponed, he says.

Small staff

The testability is good too, Lofthus believes. Last week, approx. 157,000 samples in the region. About 220,000 were analyzed across the country. This indicates more than five percent of the population of the region.

They also have plans to increase capacity. Among other things, they have been offered help to increase Haukeland’s intensive capacity in Bergen.

Lofthus believes that they have good capacity, but that the main problem now is the staff.

– We are in a completely different place now than in March last year when it comes to equipment and drugs, we have a lot of that. And we have good plans. There is a shortage of staff, he says.