The plan to scale up to 1,700 intensive care beds in the event of a crisis seems unfeasible. As the third wave advances, IC physicians fear not being able to get enough hands on the bed. “The staff is exhausted.”
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“We are not going to get to the number of beds in March last year, I can predict that. Staff deployment at every IC has decreased, “says Harald Faber, head of the IC at the Wilhelmina Hospital Assen. His colleague at the University Medical Center Groningen, Peter van der Voort, says it would ‘surprise’ him if the Netherlands reaches 1,700 beds. Last spring, the UMCG had 112 ic beds available for corona patients. Now there are 63.
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In an interview with this site, Minister Hugo de Jonge said Saturday that hospitals scale up to 1,700 ic beds if necessary, roughly the level of last year’s spring peak. There was also by the sector last summer a plan prepared for it. But Diederik Gommers, chairman of the Dutch Intensive Care Association (NVIC), confirms that this will be difficult. “There are concerns about capacity on many ICs, that’s right. And if all 75 ICs in the Netherlands can deliver two, five or ten less beds than agreed, you have a problem. ”
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Gommers does not dare to mention an exact number of beds. This week the NVIC will make an inventory of how much all ICs can deliver. “The staff at the ic is exhausted. The stretch is out, just like with the rest of the Dutch. If you ask them now if they can scale up that far again, they will answer that it is not possible. Yet we will have to do it one more time, we put our shoulders to the wheel. We need all the help with that. Scaling down from regular care is inevitable, it has already started again. “
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