Intensive care physicians warn against extreme sports and risky drug use

0

Care of Covid-19 patients
Berlin intensive care physicians urge caution with sports, drugs and in traffic

Nurses in an intensive care unit look after a Covid-19 patient

© Jan Woitas / DPA

The situation in the intensive care units continues to worsen – especially due to unvaccinated Covid-19 patients. Berlin chief and senior physicians are therefore making an appeal to the population.

In the fourth wave of the corona pandemic, the situation in the intensive care units is also worsening. In some regions, all available beds are already occupied with Covid 19 sufferers, operations that can be planned are postponed in order to conserve capacities. On the other hand, it is not possible to plan patients who need intensive medical treatment after accidents – and who may not be able to get it due to the tense situation.

Intensive care physicians from Berlin and Brandenburg are therefore making a clear appeal to the population. In an as yet unpublished statement, on which the “Tagesspiegel” and the “Märkische Onlinezeitung” report, they warn that the treatments in the intensive care units of the Berlin clinics can “no longer be maintained at today’s level for long” if the number of severe Covid-19 cases continue to rise.

Avoid extreme sports and risky drug use

The medical professionals therefore call for potentially dangerous situations to be avoided as much as possible. “We advise to be particularly careful in the next few weeks,” said Jörg Weimann, chief physician of the intensive care unit in the Sankt Gertrauden hospital in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, the “Tagesspiegel”. “This includes, for example, exposing extreme sports, avoiding high-risk drug consumption and being extremely vigilant in driving.”

The senior and chief physicians involved in the declaration point out that even more severe Covid 19 cases can be expected in the next few weeks, which would have to be treated in the intensive care units. “That will only succeed if the teams in the intensive care units look after an ever increasing number of patients with the same staffing – and that must inevitably lead to a reduction in quality,” says the appeal.

The series for the competition

“Nobody else believes us”: Why an intensive care nurse reached for the camera at the end of the shift


A patient in the intensive care unit is intubated

“Half of the intensive care unit was occupied by Covid patients”

“Here you can see how a patient is being intubated and then ventilated. The patient had severe breathing problems. We did not yet know whether these were caused by Covid when this picture was taken.
In this room of the intensive care unit there were cases in which the suspicion of a corona infection was still unconfirmed. This uncertainty, too, of never being able to be sure whether a newly admitted patient is infected or not, has made the work of the hospital staff extremely time-consuming. You not only had to protect yourself, you also had to constantly change protective clothing so as not to endanger other patients.
The intensive care unit at Basel University Hospital, where I work, has 46 intensive care beds. In the first wave, 17 or 18 of them were occupied with corona patients at peak times. In addition, there were always some suspected cases in which an infection could not yet be ruled out. They first had to be isolated as well. That means: half of the ward was blocked with isolated patients. In autumn we even had 22 or 23 corona patients in the intensive care unit at peak times. And the second wave lasts much longer than the first: over three months. “

More


Especially unvaccinated patients in the intensive care units

According to the Divi intensive care register, around 200 Covid 19 cases are currently being treated in Berlin, 104 of a total of 1080 intensive care beds are still free. Above all, unvaccinated patients would be in the intensive care units, chief physician Weimann reported to the RBB: “With the unvaccinated, the intensive care patients are getting younger and younger and we always have some with us who have no previous illnesses.” Breakthroughs in vaccinations accounted for around 20 percent of intensive care patients, mostly elderly or people with serious pre-existing illnesses.


 "Covid has a sound": Nurse draws attention to increasing number of unvaccinated patients

In order to continue to guarantee care in the intensive care units, medical interventions are already being prioritized in Berlin and Brandenburg, according to the statement by the chief and senior physicians – that is “already our daily reality – and that of many sick people in the region” . Should the situation worsen further, this could lead to “some needy people simply being denied intensive therapy”.

Sources: “Tagesspiegel” / “Märkische Onlinezeitung” / RBB / Divi intensive register

#Subjects

source site