Alarm in Cologne clinics and hospitals: The city of Cologne has the highest number of intensive care patients since the beginning of the corona pandemic. 113 people were treated in an intensive care unit on Monday.
In the metropolis of Cologne, the increasing number of patients in intensive care units has reached the highest level since the beginning of the pandemic. With 113 people being treated in an intensive care unit, the previous maximum value of the pandemic was exceeded on Monday, the city said. The maximum value in the second corona wave was 112.
Current information on the Corona situation in Cologne
The hospitals and clinics are faced with a threatening situation in the intensive care units. A total of 319 people with a corona infection would be treated in a hospital in the cathedral city. “Although human resources have already been shifted to intensive care medicine, the intensive care capacities have now been exhausted to the extent that intensive care care in the Cologne city area is reaching its limits and there is a threat of undersupply,” said the head of the rescue service of the city of Cologne, Prof. Alex Lechleuthner, in a message.
In order to guarantee medical care, intensive care patients would have had to be redistributed within Cologne’s hospitals. The city of Cologne sounded the alarm on Friday because of the increasing numbers.
Overall, there are sufficient intensive care beds in North Rhine-Westphalia
According to an assessment by the Ministry of Health at the weekend, there are currently enough free intensive care beds with ventilation technology available in North Rhine-Westphalia despite the increasing number of corona patients. A spokesman referred to the status of Friday, on which 511 intensive care beds with ventilation technology were reportedly free across the country. On Monday, the state government’s overview – the so-called dashboard – showed 522 free intensive care beds with ventilation across the country, up from 500 the day before.
According to an overview by the NRW Hospital Association, the situation in Westphalia or other parts of the state is not as tense as in Cologne, for example. The university clinic in the cathedral city has a large catchment area and a high degree of specialization, said a spokesman. But the number of infections is now also increasing in other parts of the country. This means that increasing numbers of patients can also be expected there. As in the first and second corona waves, the hospitals could now react flexibly to this. You could postpone scheduled exposures and operations, he explained. (dpa, hl; symbol photo: IMAGO / Max Stein)
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