Düsseldorf (dpa / lnw) – The omicron wave is leading to an increasing loss of staff in hospitals in North Rhine-Westphalia. However, it is not just about corona infections among employees, but also about quarantine or the need for childcare at home at times, as reported by the hospital company, Verdi and the North Rhine-Westphalia Ministry of Health. At the same time, however, the number of patients who come to the hospital for treatment with or because of Corona has also increased. According to a spokesman, the University Hospital Düsseldorf is at the highest level of staff shortages since the beginning of the pandemic.
According to the North Rhine-Westphalia Hospital Association, the situation is still manageable. Unlike in the intensive care units, it is easier to deploy staff from other departments in the isolation wards, which are currently under enormous pressure, to ensure patient care. “The supply is currently not at risk,” said the managing director of the North Rhine-Westphalia hospital association, Matthias Blum.
More people with Corona would come to the hospital. “But at the moment we are able to cope with the situation in the normal wards. The hospitals also did not have to postpone operations that could be planned to any significant extent,” Blum stated. Unfortunately, there are more and more employees who are infected or in quarantine. “Despite this multifaceted tension, the situation seems manageable so far,” he said.
The hospital company NRW does not have concrete figures on staff shortages. However, it is known from numerous reports from clinics that they are currently registering staff shortages to a similar extent as other companies. In some cases, this means that individual stations have to be temporarily closed because all three shifts in one day can no longer be manned. The hospitals constantly adapted their operations to the situation.
The NRW Ministry of Health draws a similar picture: In the weekly telephone and video conferences between the district governments and hospitals, noticeable failures due to infections, quarantine and the quarantine of family members in need of care, such as children, are reported. The failures led to temporary ward closures and the cancellation of planned interventions in some hospitals, the ministry explains. So far, however, it has been possible to compensate for these restrictions on a regional basis.
According to the Verdi NRW trade union, the initially sharp increase in the number of infections among hospital employees is falling slightly. All professional groups are affected. The infections mostly occurred in the private sphere. Many employees are in quarantine. Employees often have to stay at home because day care centers and schools send children who need care home. There are always outbreaks on individual stations. Fully vaccinated and boosted employees also became infected.
© dpa-infocom, dpa:220214-99-115280/2
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