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Now it’s getting dramatic! At the Zurich University Hospital, one of the largest hospitals in the country, there were only three beds available in the intensive care unit on Saturday. Due to the renewed increase in corona numbers, the situation is getting worse in several hospitals.
The consequences are enormous. Especially for patients with other life-threatening illnesses. Last week, Zurich University Hospital had to send home a young cancer patient for the first time. His much-needed tumor surgery was postponed. Hopefully it can be recovered by next week, the director of the University Hospital Gregor Zünd is quoted in the “SonntagsZeitung”.
Zurich University Hospital calls for a nationwide closure
Therefore, Zünd is calling for massive measures: to control the virus, a lockdown is needed: the closure of restaurants, shops, museums, cultural and sports facilities throughout Switzerland. Skiing should also be prohibited.
Now hospitals are sounding the alarm! The five university hospitals in Basel, Bern, Zurich, Lausanne and Geneva this week sent a warning in a letter to Health Minister Alain Berset (48) and Lukas Engelberger (45), president of the cantonal health directors and the Council of Government of the Basel CVP. In it they express “great concern about the current situation.”
“The situation is very difficult”
Engelberger himself is also calling for even stricter measures in the fight against the corona pandemic. It considers it irresponsible to significantly prolong the current situation. “We will have to talk about new measures to reduce the infection,” he says. The cantonal health directors would meet with federal councilor Berset on Monday.
“The situation is very difficult,” Engelberger continues. At the moment there is only capacity in the hospitals because the structures have been strengthened and many interventions are being dispensed with. “And these are not just ‘nice’ interventions.”
“There will be ethical questions”
Beds in intensive care units were becoming scarce, the nursing staff had reached their limits. University hospitals have postponed more than 4,000 operations since October. “There will be ethical issues,” said Uwe E. Jocham, director of the Bern Inselspital. Specifically, this means that at some point doctors will have to decide who to treat and who not.
Hospital directors fear there will be a third wave of coronavirus after Christmas, and the hospital system could collapse. In their letter to Berset, they ask for a stricter intervention from the Federal Council. Uwe Jocham is clear: he is calling for the government to “finally have clear and uniform orders and prohibitions as possible”, such as the uniform wearing of masks in cities.
Also in “NZZ am Sonntag”, doctors appeal to politics and the public. Three chief doctors from Zurich want to change. They warn of the collapse of hospitals. “The health system is already overloaded. For weeks, ”warn Urs Karrer, chief physician at Winterthur Cantonal Hospital, Huldrych Günthard, professor of infectious diseases at Zurich University Hospital, and Gerhard Eich, chief infectious agent at Triemli. (dba)
