This week, there are just as many corona patients in Belgian hospitals as during the first wave. Another doubling is expected before mid-November. At some Brussels hospitals they are already experiencing ‘Italian situations’, reports Het Laatste Nieuws.
“This morning, a corona patient who we should have been able to put on the heart-lung machine died”, says Peter Fontaine, general manager of the Brussels Europe Hospitals. “But our two intensive care units are full and there was no other facility left with a heart-lung machine. Normally we have to have sixteen corona beds on the ic, currently there are only thirteen. A staff shortage is troubling us. ”
Het Laatste Nieuws asked fifty hospitals about their capacity. “On Wednesday we will go over our peak of the first wave. The influx of patients is now twice as large, and it is going twice as fast ”, says Karin Decaestecker of the crisis cell of the West Flemish merger hospital AZ Delta.
Marc Geboers of Zorgnet-Icuro responds: “With the first wave, protective material was the major problem, now the hospitals are faced with a very large outage. Where absenteeism is normally 5 percent, an average of 15 percent is now absent and in some hospitals even 20 percent. People drop out because of corona or quarantine measures, but also because of burnouts. ”
2,000 IC beds are available in Belgium. Already nearly 1,500 are occupied. What if that number really doubles in mid-November? “With that we are talking about the absolute maximum. Then it becomes improvising. ”
Bron (nen): HLN
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