For example, a patient with a heart attack. Usually the emergency doctor reports to the control center, which reports back where an intensive care bed is free, ideally in close proximity. And that very quickly. “It just doesn’t exist anymore,” says Thomas Weiler. People often spend two hours on the phone asking for a bed – that doesn’t exist or that is somewhere in Bavaria. Weiler is coordinating the work of the hospitals in Starnberg, Fürstenfeldbruck, Landsberg and Dachau in the corona pandemic, so is responsible for more than half a million residents in Upper Bavaria.
He controls for professional reasons – in a situation, as he says, in which one “can no longer control”. In all of Upper Bavaria four intensive care beds are free, “de facto full capacity”. Weiler also tells of the patient with a tumor on the pancreas, the urgent operation is pending, after which he will need an intensive care bed. The operation would have to be postponed, “this is the situation we are in at the moment”.
Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) discussed the intensive situation with representatives of Bavarian clinics on Thursday. This resulted in a “relatively uniform picture”, said Söder, “very factual, but partly emotional”. The situation is serious, “the fact is: the hospitals are full”. The pandemic is moving through Bavaria, through all of Germany. “To think that development is limited to a few hotspots is an illusion.” Söder listed four problems. “The basic problem remains: unvaccinated is without protection.” Second, more vaccination breakthroughs and, third, “less willingness to obey the rules” among the population. And last but not least, a “quiet withdrawal of some from care”. Health Minister Klaus Holetschek (CSU) confirms that it is not the lack of ventilators that is the core of the problem, but rather the staff “as a bottleneck”.
“2G in Germany wherever possible”
On Wednesday, the state government declared the disaster again. The move helps with hospital organization, patient distribution and bed management, and, according to Söder, to proclaim “general mobilization in care”. Politically, Söder also looked to Berlin: The offer of the future traffic light coalition is like a “summer tire set”, winter equipment is necessary. He placed hopes in the conference of the Prime Ministers, called among other things “2G in Germany, wherever possible”.
Clinic helmsman Weiler explained: In lockdowns one had fewer strokes or other cases, also fewer traffic accidents. At the same time, there are far fewer nursing staff than twelve months ago. In soccer metaphors, the employees played “extra time after extra time” without a break, but they haven’t had eleven people on the field for a long time, maybe eight, and the bench is empty. Another problem in intensive care units is the use of double boxes, a Covid sufferer cannot lie next to another patient. According to Weiler, it is a “threatening situation” for everyone in the population. He praised the corona bonus for clinics and a bed-free bonus from the state government as concrete help, but “not with a watering can”.
“At the level of life and death”
After the summit with Söder there is not only satisfaction. Jens Deerberg-Wittram took part in the meeting on screen as managing director of the RoMed clinics in the city and district of Rosenheim. The government had set an example, but unfortunately that did not bring much benefit, specifically nothing had been improved. Anything that, in his opinion, could really help the clinics at the moment, such as mandatory vaccination, a new lockdown or the suspension of all postponed treatments, is considered politically unenforceable, and the state government only refers to the federal government.
Markus Schopper from the Bogenhausen Clinic in Munich spoke for the care sector. It is now “one minute to twelve”, the nurses are finished. And 90 percent of intensive care patients are unvaccinated, sometimes “on the level of life and death”. In his experience, breakthroughs in vaccination, provided that patients are not immunocompromised, are usually less severe.