Status: 11/28/2021 6:06 p.m.
In a large-scale operation, almost 50 corona intensive care patients from Bavaria, Thuringia and Saxony were relocated to other federal states. A health expert warns that transport to neighboring European countries could soon be threatened.
The most extensive campaign to date for the nationwide transfer of corona intensive care patients has been completed. Since Friday, almost 50 seriously ill people from Bavaria, Thuringia and Saxony have been brought to other federal states.
The relocation as part of the so-called clover leaf system serves to relieve intensive care units in the three federal states that were particularly hard hit by the fourth corona wave. The concept was launched in spring 2020 under the impression of the first corona wave.
Possible relocations abroad
The situation in the intensive care units in the corona hotspots is described by doctors as dramatic. In Bavaria alone, according to the intensive care register, there were more than 1000 corona patients in the intensive care units – over half of them were under ventilation.
In the future, relocations abroad could also be pending if the capacities in Germany are no longer sufficient, said the Green health expert Janosch Dahmen of the “Welt am Sonntag”. “Based on the number of new infections, we must assume that hundreds of intensive care patients will have to be moved,” said Dahmen of the newspaper. “Because the demand could rise so blatantly, relocations to neighboring EU countries may also be necessary,” added der Dahmen.
Bundeswehr supports with special Airbus
29 patients had been transferred from Bavaria by Sunday, said Hermann Schröder, chairman of the working group on rescue services, disaster control and civil defense at the conference of interior ministers. Among other things, a large-capacity intensive care vehicle and ambulance aircraft were in use for this.
An A 310 MedEvac, a Bundeswehr aircraft, also supported the mission. This special Airbus, which is also described as a “flying intensive care unit”, had already brought six patients from Memmingen to North Rhine-Westphalia on Friday.
“Dramatic climax”
In the past two years, Corona aid has flown a lot and has given support, especially in other European countries, explains a commander of the A310 on the Twitter news service. “And unfortunately, we have reached the dramatic climax that we now urgently need to help our own citizens,” said the captain.
On Sunday he flew five seriously ill corona patients from Munich to Hamburg. They should then be transferred to hospitals in Schleswig-Holstein. In addition, according to Schröder, six patients from Thuringia and 14 from Saxony were brought to other countries.
A corona patient is transported on a stretcher on arrival on board a MedEvac aircraft of the Bundeswehr at the airport in Hamburg.
Image: REUTERS
Several federal states ready for inclusion
Hospitals in Lower Saxony, Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Bremen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland had agreed to accept intensive care patients through mediation.