RIVM warns that intensive care units may reopen this winter be flooded by corona patients. The Ministry of Health has therefore asked the hospitals in a letter how they can be scaled up to more than the current maximum of 1,350 IC beds. Whether that will be successful remains to be seen: nurses say that further scaling up is impossible.
Today, for the first time since October 11, IC patients were transferred to other hospitals. This concerns four patients from the Isala hospital in Zwolle who have been moved to hospitals in the Rotterdam region, a spokesperson for the Isala confirms. The transfer of patients was stopped last week because the number of admissions to the ICUs in our country was sufficiently low.
Not all patients could be admitted to the IC of the hospital in Zwolle. In the region, the number of infections has risen sharply since the beginning of this month, especially in centers such as Staphorst, where the vaccination rate is relatively low.
‘Care infarction’
Moving patients in many more places could be discussed next winter. With the current measures (without relaxation in November and with social contacts at the current level), RIVM is counting on an IC occupancy of approximately 180 beds with an extension to a maximum of 400 beds occupied by corona patients. According to that forecast, it will be the busiest in the intensive care units in mid or late January.
“The predictions are completely theoretical, with a large degree of uncertainty. At the moment it is much quieter in hospitals,” says Ernst Kuipers, chairman of the National Network Acute Care. According to Kuipers, about 85 percent of hospitals can now provide regular and planable care in the normal way. “But at this stage we have to prepare, because suppose the prediction comes true.”
Nurses hold their breath. They say that scaling up to more than 1350 IC beds is not possible at all. “It is irresponsible and impossible, we are already in a care infarction. We have a very high absenteeism rate and a large outflow of nurses in the ICUs and in the rest of the care,” said Bianca Buurman, president of the professional association of Nurses & Caregivers in the Netherlands ( V&VN).
Last year, the hospitals did manage to scale up to more than 1,350 IC beds, but the situation has changed, according to Buurman. There is too little staff, “and the rest of the care must now continue, it was stopped last year”.
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