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The situation in Swiss hospitals is tense. On Tuesday, the Federal Office of Public Health (BAG) reported a total of 4,560 new infections and 142 deaths – 299 people had to be hospitalized. Even if the curve for new corona infections flattens compared to recent days, the pressure on intensive care units is mounting. In Switzerland there are currently 3,829 Covid patients in hospital, 542 of them in the intensive care unit. The proportion of people infected with corona in intensive care units is currently 60 percent. At the beginning of November it was 40 percent.
In fact, of the 1,142 intensive care beds in Switzerland, 900 are currently occupied according to information provided by KSD’s coordinated medical service. This corresponds to an intensive care bed occupancy rate of 79 percent, and the trend is increasing. Because ten days ago the occupancy of intensive care beds was 70 percent. “The intensive care units are very busy,” KSD’s Andreas Stettbacher said Tuesday afternoon. At that time, there were only 242 free intensive care beds left in Switzerland.
The equipment for an intensive care bed is around 200,000 francs.
Intensive care units have been battling collapse for weeks. Because crown patients who need to be treated in the intensive care unit stay there much longer than other intensive care patients. The experience of hospitals in the “Common Health Region” of both Basel programs: One first wave Covid 19 patient was in the intensive care unit for an average of eight to twelve days.
“Currently, the length of stay in the intensive care unit is shorter than in spring, fewer patients with Covid-19 have to be intubated and ventilated,” says doctor Peter Indra, head of medical care at the health department of the canton of Basel-Stadt, to VIEW. Reason: Corona patients are even younger than in the first wave. “But the average age and, therefore, the length of hospitalization are increasing”, says Indra.
According to Indra, equipping an intensive care bed with equipment costs around 200,000 francs. At 40,000 to 60,000 francs, a fan is the most expensive to buy. For comparison: a perfusor in the infusion pump tower costs between 1,000 and 3,000 francs.
Patients who need ventilation cost around 4,000 francs a day.
According to Peter Steiger, head of the intensive care unit at the Zurich University Hospital, the equipment of the intensive care bed shown in the photo at the Dresden University Hospital corresponds to that of Swiss hospitals. “However, Ecmo pumps are rarely used in corona patients with severe courses at our Zurich University Hospital,” Steiger tells BLICK.
On average, a normal hospital stay costs around 10,000 francs. “A patient’s stay in the hospital is five to six days. The costs of a day in the intensive care unit are normally 2000 to 3000 francs per patient. However, if the patient in the intensive care unit of a university hospital has to be ventilated and cared for more intensively, the costs amount to about 4,000 francs a day ”, explains Indra.
“Corona patient in an intensive care unit costs up to 120,000 francs”
In the case of Covid 19 patients, however, both the costs and length of hospital stay differ significantly. “If a patient with a crown is treated in an intensive care unit for two or three weeks, it costs up to 120,000 francs,” Verena Nold, director of the Swiss health insurance association Santésuisse, tells BLICK.
In the fight against the corona pandemic, the hospitals of the cantons of Basel-Stadt and Baselland concluded a joint agreement on the management of patients in intensive care at the end of October 2020. The objective of this concept: to use common resources to prevent hospitals from being overloaded by corona patients in need of intensive medical care, and to avoid a collapse.
