Corona intensive care units: there are still free beds in these cantons

This is the situation of the crown in your canton

The number of Covid-19 patients in intensive care units has doubled compared to last week. Space is increasingly scarce in some cantons, but not only are bottlenecks expected at IPS.

Last week, a team from ETH Zurich published for the first time an occupancy tracking in Swiss intensive care units. At that time, around 10% of the IPS beds were occupied by Covid 19 patients. Around 60% of the beds had other patients dependent on intensive care. The remaining 30% was vacant.

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The situation has changed in recent days. The overall occupancy rate has remained around 70%, but that The proportion of patients with Covid 19 is significantly higher become – doubled in a week.

Use of Swiss intensive care units

Unsurprisingly, the increase in the number of cases over the past two weeks has led to additional hospitalizations in acute and intensive care units.

The fact that the use of IPS remains the same in general is partly due to the fact that some cantons and regions already non-urgent operations postponed to have. For example, the canton of Geneva decided a week ago to postpone planned operations that are not urgent. The goal is to create room space and save additional staff. The federal working group assumes that this measure will continue in all cantons.

In which cantons are the IPS beds full?

With 39 occupied beds out of a total of 62 IPS beds, the canton of Geneva is not yet as close to the bottleneck as other cantons. For example, the only one reports a free space Canton of Neuchâtel.

How long will there be enough space?

To answer this question, the working group has calculated several models that were presented on Friday, but are still up to date. Because according to Martin Ackermann, head of the federal Covid-19 task force, there is currently no indication that the latest measures are in effect.

If the number of cases doubled every 7 days, as we currently have, intensive care units would be Mid-November full. If the doubling time were shortened to 5 days, they would even fill up in early November. If you manage with the measures that the numbers “only” double every 10 days, you could reach the capacity limit end of november move.

Ackermann said non-emergency interventions could be stopped across the country to build short-term capabilities (shown in light gray in the graph), but this is not the solution to this problem. According to their calculations, congestion at the current rate of propagation could only be observed Delay 32 hours – After that, the situation would be precarious again.

Do you have enough staff?

Increasing the number of beds is one step; however, to be able to fill them with patients, enough specialists are also required. The red line in the workgroup chart shows the maximum number of IPS beds (about 1400 beds) that may be available for which there is sufficient staff available.

However, in this second wave, hospitals will not be able to completely avoid staff shortages. For example, the Geneva University Hospital sent a call for help last week. Employees who are already retired or taking unpaid leave have been allowed to report to the hospital.

Where else could there be bottlenecks?

The development of intensive care units is currently being followed closely, but bottlenecks could also emerge elsewhere in the health sector. For example, the canton of Valais has already reported overcrowding in acute care beds (without intensive care). At Tuesday’s press conference, Andreas Stettbacher, Federal Council delegate for coordinated medical service, said: “If things continue like this, the acute beds would be occupied in 15 days. »

There could also be a lack of employees in administration or, for example, in ambulance in the coming weeks and months.

How does Switzerland compare to other European countries?

The Valais in particular, but also the Canton of Geneva, are reporting European highs for individual regions. In the “Subnational Explorer” of the World Health Organization, only the Belgian region of Wallonia faces the Valais; As soon as the data is updated, the Valais should stand out as the worst affected region.