Belgian hospitals must again scale up to phase 1A of the distribution plan, whereby a quarter of the IC beds must be kept free for COVID-19 patients from Wednesday 15 September. “We need to spread Covid patients better across the country, but some families are resisting and saying, ‘I’d rather he die here’.”
The cause of the shift is the increasing number of patients with COVID-19 that have to be admitted. Belgium has two thousand intensive care beds. Five hundred of these must therefore be reserved for corona-related care.
A decision that is difficult to defend and will again ensure that regular care falls behind, according to head doctor Van Assche of UZ Leuve. “Moreover, in reality more than a quarter of beds are lost for regular patients. The government does not take ‘closed beds’ into account due to staff shortages. And that also presents a major problem after three corona waves”, says the chief doctor at Radio 1.
“In our view, the increase in seriously ill covid patients in certain regions such as Brussels was avoidable. And this has major consequences for the vast majority of vaccinated compatriots.” The chief physician of UZ Leuven is therefore arguing for the introduction of a general vaccination obligation.
Doctor Philippe Jorens of the UZ in Antwerp does not want it to come to a vaccination obligation, but he does not understand why people do not get vaccinated.“That people are critical of vaccines is human”, says Jorens. “But I would like to take them to our ICU to show how bad the disease is if you are not vaccinated. And how to infect other people. We find it difficult that the argument of the freedom to decide for oneself about vaccination takes so much freedom from others. Our children are required to be vaccinated against polio for public health. I don’t see a big difference with the coronavirus.”
The Belgian Minister of Health Frank Vandenbroucke does not think that patients are now being abandoned. He does acknowledge that there is a large backlog due to delayed care and that this also causes suffering. “We would only abandon patients if we did not act strongly enough against the virus,” it sounds. “The hospitals’ complaint is justified, but there is only one good solution: stay careful, don’t announce that tomorrow everything will be over, vaccinate more and bite the bullet.”
Geert Van Assche (UZ Leuven) critical of scaling up hospitals: ‘Major consequences for vaccinees’ https://t.co/OBNFsedbzx
— De Morgen (@demorgen) September 9, 2021
Scaling up again for corona: already eleven hospitals in trouble https://t.co/MulKGpgr7y
— HLN.BE (@HLN_BE) September 8, 2021
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