Corona pandemic: Romania’s hospitals collapse | tagesschau.de

In hardly any other country, proportionally, as many people die of Covid-19 as in Romania. This is also due to the low willingness to vaccinate. The hospitals are at their limit.

Ambulances with Covid patients arrive almost incessantly in front of the emergency room of the Bucharest University Hospital. The rescue vehicles hardly have any more space to park for a short time. The paramedics lend a hand, quickly rolling the patients on the stretchers to the emergency room.

He drove here by ambulance from Călărași, a large city around two hours’ drive southeast of Bucharest, says the paramedic. Some patients were vaccinated, but most were not vaccinated. There are less severe cases among the vaccinated. But everyone would have an excuse not to get vaccinated. “One says he has a serious illness that makes him unable to be vaccinated, many don’t believe in the vaccine. Different people, different cases.”

“Can you hear me?” A nurse asks the patient. She shows her how to press her finger on her nose and breathe through her nostril. “Press it with your other fingers, like this.”

“Never seen so much death”

In the emergency room, in the hospital corridors, a makeshift space is created for those infected with Covid. The intensive care beds are fully occupied. The internist Petruța Filip says that she has not seen so many deaths here at the University Hospital in Bucharest for a long time. Actually, she has never seen so much death.

Only around 30 percent of the population are fully vaccinated. Much more do not want to be vaccinated: According to a survey published at the beginning of October, six out of ten Romanians reject the vaccination. The seven-day incidence is 1500. With the exception of the small Caribbean island of Santa Luca, nowhere else in the world are more people dying of Covid-19 than in Romania in relation to the number of inhabitants. Last Friday there were 365 people in one day.

Vaccination rate is too low

The vaccination rate is very low, reports Filip. The people are not vaccinated and the virus has managed to mutate. It is much more contagious than before. In addition, there is the fact that there are no more corona restrictions as in previous years. This contributed greatly to the spread of the virus. “Most of the infected patients are not vaccinated. Since the beginning of the fourth corona wave, I have only had one vaccinated patient, all the others were not vaccinated,” said Filip.

The Bucharest Medical Association wrote in an open letter to the population: The doctors were desperate because of the hundreds of deaths every day, the medical staff were exhausted and overwhelmed. “Now you can see for yourself what is happening here, what else can we say in words? Absolutely nothing has changed, people still don’t get vaccinated,” a doctor on duty vented his constant stress.

No more beds for the patients

A colleague adds: “We even had 20 infected people on chairs here.” The poor patients sat in chairs here for days. Even now the patients are there and wait. “We just don’t know what to do with them anymore because nobody believes us. They just tell us that it’s the same everywhere.”

“Have you been vaccinated, my lady?” Asks the doctor. The patient shakes her head. The elderly woman already has an oxygen mask on her mouth and is very weak. Friday night, she says, was a disaster. You called the emergency service. They said to her that she had Covid. That night she felt very badly. That’s why she came here. “I feel better here, now I feel good, my oxygen saturation has increased,” she continues.

Help from abroad

The situation is now so critical that the government has asked that Covid intensive care patients be treated abroad. Hungary has already taken on the first ten patients in critical condition, Poland, Italy and the Netherlands are sending oxygen devices and antibody substances. All of this, say the doctors at the Bucharest University Hospital, is urgently needed – while they are treating the patients at the same time.

“We no longer have any oxygen devices, we have no more free beds, we have nothing.” The doctors continue to report that all resources have been exhausted. They still absolutely need ventilators, they say. You have patients here who need a ventilator and they no longer have any. “We’re treating them here with two canisters of oxygen. We’re just doing everything we can to help them.”