The disaster has been in force in Bavaria again since Thursday. The incidence values reach new highs, the corona traffic light is red. According to the intensive care bed register of the Robert Koch Institute, around 90 percent of the intensive care beds across Bavaria are occupied on Friday. The situation is also worsening in the intensive care units in the Würzburg region. Most of the intensively treated Covid patients are unvaccinated according to the clinics.
“Our ICU utilization is over 90 percent,” says Susanne Just, press spokeswoman for the Würzburg University Hospital. ICU stands for “Intensive Care Unit”, which means intensive care unit in English. “We try to avoid reaching a capacity limit by all means.” At the university hospital, according to Just, the overwhelming majority of the intensively treated Covid-infected people are unvaccinated.
Würzburg clinics almost full
The worsening pandemic situation is putting additional strain on the intensive care units, which are already heavily used in late autumn. “Especially in autumn there is a high demand from our clinics due to various infections,” says Daniela Kalb, press spokeswoman for the Würzburg Mitte Clinic (KWM). All 26 intensive care beds are currently occupied. Four of them with Covid infected, three of whom have to be ventilated. The three patients, whose course is so difficult that intensive medical care including ventilation is necessary, are all unvaccinated, said Kalb.
Treatments have not yet had to be postponed due to the pandemic situation in the KWM. “A full occupancy does not make us unable to act,” says Kalb. For this you have to keep an eye on the daily dynamics, i.e. the fluctuation in the intensive care units. Nevertheless, the current pandemic development is observed with concern so that measures can be taken at short notice if necessary.
Main Clinic Ochsenfurt postpones surgery dates
At the Main Clinic in Ochsenfurt, precautionary measures have already been taken, says managing director and administrative manager Christian Schell. In order to be able to provide capacities for Covid patients in acute cases, some surgery appointments have been postponed. After all, the cost of care for people infected with Covid, who have to be treated in isolation due to the risk of infection, is significantly higher than that of most other patients, according to Schell.
The intensive care unit in Ochsenfurt is currently fully utilized, but not with corona patients. Six infected people are treated in the normal ward. According to Schell, the clear majority of those infected with corona are unvaccinated and vaccinated people with serious previous illnesses.
So far, none of the clinics has had to transfer patients to other hospitals due to a lack of capacity. However, in order to relieve stations in southern Bavaria, some infected people were recently transferred to local clinics. “The situation in the intensive care units was, is and will remain tense,” says Susanne Just from the Würzburg University Clinic.
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