Status: 25.11.2021 5:28 p.m.
In view of the critical situation in Bavaria, Saxony and Thuringia, the first patients could already be transferred to clinics in the north and west. According to the will of the health ministers, predictable operations are to be postponed nationwide.
Due to the worsening corona situation in large parts of Germany, planned operations are to be postponed nationwide according to the will of the federal and state health ministers. This is already the case in many federal states.
The chairman of the conference of health ministers, Bavaria’s head of department Klaus Holetschek, reported after a switching conference that the states had agreed on this. It also needs flat rates for the clinics if they keep intensive care beds and clinic staff free for Covid 19 patients.
“It is very clear to all of us that it is very, very serious,” said Holetschek of the news agency (dpa). There is great solidarity between all federal states, emphasized the CSU politician. Holetschek thanked the countries that are now accepting patients from other parts of the country as part of the so-called clover leaf concept.
Nine federal states accept intensive care patients
In Bavaria, Thuringia and Saxony, preparations have now begun for the transfer of 54 Covid-19 patients to intensive care units in currently less affected areas in northern and western Germany. As the responsible working group of the Conference of Interior Ministers announced, hospitals in Lower Saxony, Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Bremen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland agreed to accept patients.
The 54 patients who are medically eligible for a transfer were said to have been selected on Wednesday. 30 of them come from Bavaria, 10 from Thuringia and 14 from Saxony.
First relocations probably already today
Previously, applications for relocation according to the so-called clover leaf concept had been examined for a total of around 80 sufferers. The concept adopted in 2020 as a result of the corona pandemic provides for the relocation to initially take place within five regions – west, north, east, south, and south-west. If there are not enough free places in the intensive care units in one of these regions, the transfer to other areas will also be organized.
“The first transfers of this so far largest intensive transfer deployment in Germany will probably take place today after contact has been made between the receiving and the receiving clinics,” it said after a meeting of the steering committee. For Saxony, State Health Minister Petra Köpping (SPD) also announced that the first patient transfers were planned today.
The Luftwaffe is now holding two aircraft in Cologne for an aid mission to relocate intensive care patients. This includes the Airbus A310 MedEvac, the flying intensive care unit, as well as a converted special machine, the surveillance aircraft A319OH. An Air Force spokesman said two places for intensive treatment were built into this the day before. The Airbus A310 MedEvac has six intensive care spaces.
The shamrock concept
The cloverleaf concept adopted in 2020 stipulates that the installation will initially take place within five regions – west, north, east, south, and southwest. If there are no longer any vacancies in one of these regions, the transfer to other areas will be organized in exchange with the joint reporting and situation center of the federal and state governments at the Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK). The Federal Office and the Federal Ministries of the Interior and Defense were also invited to the special meeting of the health ministers.
Bavaria’s clinics warn of unprecedented emergency
In Bavaria, the clinics fear a hitherto unprecedented emergency in supply with a view to the end of the year. The transfer of patients to other federal states will only provide a short-term remedy, warns Roland Engehausen, the managing director of the Bavarian Hospital Society. “All forecasts point in the direction that the number of patients will continue to rise and that we in Bavaria do not have sufficient intensive care capacities,” he told the dpa. “The currently still available intensive capacities in the north will only be able to help us for a few weeks because the occupancy is increasing there too.”
Due to the overload of the Bavarian clinics, the transfer of around 50 Covid intensive care patients to other federal states is currently in preparation. But currently a double-digit number of additional intensive care patients is admitted to the clinics every day, on Wednesday alone there were over 40. “We have to reduce the number of newly infected people in Bavaria,” said Engehausen. “Otherwise, between Christmas and New Years, we’ll end up in a drama that has never happened before.”