The coronavirus in Belgium is straining the Belgian hospital sector and its staff. A team from RTL INFO was able to follow the medical director of CHIREC. He manages three sites, including two in Brussels. A dive into the daily lives of nurses and doctors who receive patients affected by covid-19 every day.
First step of our visit alongside the CHIREC medical director: the waiting room. “As you can see, the waiting room is empty. It never happens on a Monday morning“, he confides.
For the moment we are not in the tsunami
First effect of confinement, the Belgians no longer rush to the emergency room. For Philippe El Haddad, who runs the CHIREC hospital sites, his staff can finally focus on the coronavirus.
At Braine-L’Alleud, the emergency outpost is under control. The medical director has an eye on everything. “For the moment we are not in the tsunami, we are not in the wave. Maybe Wednesday, Thursday until the end of the weekend, you have to see“, explains Philippe El Haddad.
Sort incoming patients
Sorting patients is a delicate job. Any diagnostic error should be avoided to limit contamination. “People who lose smell, who lose taste. So people who come on an outpatient basis describing these symptoms are an additional suspicion factor. Well, it’s not always very square: fever, cough, flu syndrome. It can be more insidious and torpid than that“, says Marie Vanhove, head of the emergency department at Braine-l’Alleud hospital.
The medical director then shows us the emergency center. The medical staff multiply the tests there to separate positive patients from others. “Those who are covid positive, therefore who have symptoms, who have a positive CT scan and are very talking, are put in a very specific unit“, explains Philippe El Haddad.
We are well aware that we will have to hold out over time and length
The emergency department currently receives 50 people a day. “We are well aware that we will have to hold out over time and length“, briefly comments Jean Bernard, head of the emergency department of the Braine-l’Alleud hospital.
In the intensive care unit of Braine-l’Alleud, the fight against the coronavirus is played on a case-by-case basis. “We recently had a patient with a large heart attack. A 28 year old young man. Fortunately with all the care we were able to provide him he was able to get out of it. But these are indeed things that require monitoring at all levels. At the respiratory level, at the level of the other organs, the heart in particular, but also sometimes the kidneys and the liver, which can also malfunction“says Daniel De Backer, head of the intensive care unit.
Morally I cannot say that we are insensitive
Our team meets a woman hospitalized for 12 days. It is positive for covid-19. Under respiratory assistance, it requires constant attention. Her nurse Fiorella recognizes that she is going through difficult times. “Morally I cannot say that we are insensitive. No. We think about it, we are afraid, we have families. We have people of all ages who are affected. Contrary to what we hear, no, there are young people. So yes, morally it reaches us yes“, says Fiorella Sapiensa, intensive care nurse.
Coordinate with all sites
At midday, Philippe meets by videoconference the managers of each CHIREC site. Hospitalizations are accelerating but remain below expectations.
We then take over the management of the Delta site in Brussels, the main structure of the hospital group. At the entrance, families who come to see the patients are checked. This is also the case for Philippe El Haddad: temperature and oxygen level in the blood.
The director then shows us a unit entirely dedicated to patients who are positive for the coronavirus. Or 24 beds. Hospitalizations last from 7 to 14 days. “Today, but you have to be very careful, in the last 72 hours, the number of positive patients, clearly, is decreasing. On the other hand, what we see is that patients who arrive at the hospital with a suspected or confirmed diagnosis of covid-19 are more seriously affected. So we are hospitalizing them, but we are not exploding in terms of positive cases or in terms of hospitalization“, says Jean Gerain, head of infectious diseases at CHIREC.
In the coronavirus intensive care unit, 11 of the 18 beds are occupied. Doctors see rapid worsening of respiratory distress and they have to make choices for the most critical cases.
For example, a patient benefits from a machine that replaces their lungs. “It is a very expensive technique, so you also need to have patients selected. It allows us to temporize, the time that the lungs heal, to be able to save time“, explains Antonella Cudia, doctor in the intensive care unit.
For the time being, confinement appears to have an effect on limiting serious cases. But at CHIREC, everything is ready to open a new unit if necessary.
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