Status: 05.04.2022 11:13 a.m
According to a new AOK study, the corona pandemic also caused a decline in clinic occupancy last year. High numbers of infections caused staff shortages: many operations that could be planned had to be cancelled.
In the past year, the number of cases in German hospitals According to a study declined as much as in 2020, the first year of the corona pandemic. This was announced by the Scientific Institute of the AOK (WIdO).
Somatic cases saw a 14 percent decrease in 2021 compared to 2019. In 2020, the drop in patient numbers was 13 percent. “A first, very up-to-date look at the omicron wave shows that the case number slumps are continuing this year. In January and February 2022 compared to 2019, there were declines of 22 percent in somatic and 14 percent in psychiatric cases recorded,” reported WIdO Managing Director Jürgen Klauber.
High infection numbers and staff shortages
Klauber cited the high number of corona infections as the main reason for the current slumps, which led to significant staff shortages in the hospitals and, as a result, to the cancellation of treatments and operations. Developments in the field of emergency care are cause for concern: nine percent fewer inpatient treatments for heart attacks were registered in 2021 than in 2019 – after minus seven percent in 2020. The number of stroke treatments in 2021 was seven percent lower than in the comparison year 2019 (2020 : minus five percent).
Sharp drop in scheduled surgeries
Due to the pandemic, significantly fewer colonoscopies were also carried out in the hospitals. “Here there is a fear that a lack of diagnostics and subsequent treatment will lead to more serious cancers, higher tumor stages in the initial diagnosis and an increase in mortality,” said Klauber. The WIdO also found a sharp decline in the clinics in planned operations that could also be carried out on an outpatient basis. “In this respect, there was apparently also a reduction in oversupply in the course of the pandemic,” emphasized Klauber. A complete return to the number of cases before the pandemic did not make sense.
Corona care: concentration on university clinics
When it comes to the care of inpatients with Covid-19, the AOK data shows a concentration on university clinics and hospitals with maximum care: A quarter of the clinics then treated almost two-thirds (62 percent) of all inpatient Covid-19 cases .
The analysis of the hospital data from a total of around 230,000 AOK-insured Covid-19 patients shows a mortality rate of 19 percent for inpatients treated in the course of the corona pandemic so far. For those who are ventilated, it is even 51 percent. Mortality is particularly high in the over 80 age group at 76 percent. The President of the German Society for Internal Intensive Care Medicine and Emergency Medicine, Christian Karagiannidis, emphasized that the introduction of vaccinations was the most important tool in the fight against corona and to protect older people from a serious illness.