Elderly people who become seriously ill from the coronavirus end up less often in intensive care (IC). This is evident from figures from the NICE (National Intensive Care Evaluation) foundation, which were requested by Trouw. “Every doctor looks at what is best for the patient in question,” explains Minister of Medical Care Martin van Rijn good morning Netherlands. “And we also learn that ICU is not always the best treatment for older patients.”
NICE records admission rates by age group. In March, more than one in three corona patients on IC was 70 or older. Now that is one in four.
IC patients a lot younger in a month
The largest group of corona patients on the ICs was between 70 and 75 years old in March. A month later, most patients on the IC are a lot younger: between the ages of 60 and 65. Of the more than a thousand people over 80 who have been hospitalized with corona in the past two months, only a few dozen have been referred to IC.
The registered hospital admissions that are kept by RIVM also show that fewer elderly people end up in hospital with the coronavirus at all. This probably does not mean that the elderly now fall ill less often, but that sick elderly people are treated at home more often.
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“Still learning every week”
According to Minister Van Rijn, the corona measures do have an effect. “We are not only looking at the IC figures, but also at the number of admissions to the hospital, and fortunately you are also seeing them fall.”
Van Rijn emphasizes that people are still learning about IC treatments. “It is very difficult when someone in old age receives an IC treatment in which they have to be intubated (insertion of a breathing tube, ed.), Whereby the results are often not good either. We still learn every week from the treatments of the coronavirus. ”
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By: Bert van Doorn
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