Hospitals are increasingly faced with insufficient staff, says managing director of Zorgnet-Icuro Margot Cloet. She fears that hospitals will soon have to sacrifice quality of care if more staff are not urgently needed.
–
The situation in hospitals is gradually getting out of hand. For example, there are many hospitals that are already on their gum when it comes to staffing. “Normally we have an absence of five percent at this time of the year, now we are already at fifteen percent,” says Margot Cloet of the umbrella organization Zorgnet-Icuro. The absence is explained by hospital staff who are themselves in quarantine or who have contracted corona. But some are also mentally affected, says Cloet. “And the fear is that staff absence will only increase in the coming weeks. Unfortunately, we have already had to stop regular care in order to be able to better deploy the available staff. ”
One of the possible solutions is the use of students. “This is already possible partly as a job student, nurses who are going to their second year, for example. But we should be able to organize that more massively. And for that we must act now. Before it will be too late at hospitals. Hospitals with many covid beds, such as in Antwerp for example, the shortage of staff is already palpable. If the covid beds go to times six, we just can’t handle it. ”
Cloet also hopes to get people into care in other ways. “From the events sector, for example, but also pensioners whom we want to recall. That requires legislative changes. ”
Second wave as bad as the first
Intensivist Geert Meyfoidt confirms the image that Cloet paints at VTM Nieuws. “What is coming our way now is at least as bad as during the second wave. We expect to reach maximum capacity at the beginning of November. We can organize ourselves up to a certain capacity. Everything depends on the measures. Otherwise we will not be able to give the concerns as we want to give them and may have to make choices. We have to keep the quality of healthcare that is so good in Belgium, ”he says.
According to Meyfroidt, the measures taken in Brussels and Wallonia are not a moment too soon. “Actually, the response was far too late. And in Flanders people are still taking great risks. ”
READ ALSO. One intertwined after another, but we continue to shop: a lot of people on the Antwerp Meir
– .
