The Covid incidence in Munich is falling, but the city’s clinics are complaining about increasing stress, especially in the emergency rooms. There are many reasons for this – Corona is just one of them.
The Bavarian Hospital Society (BKG) sounded the alarm earlier this week: “Emergency rooms are currently often overloaded due to a lack of staff,” the message was titled. According to the BKG, two facts lead to this overload: On the one hand, the staffing level is thin because many of the employees have also been infected with Covid, and because the care of Covid patients binds nursing staff.
In addition, BKG Managing Director Roland Engehausen also blames a group of patients for the bottlenecks: “The situation that the emergency room of the nearby clinic is also visited for rather trivial treatments is not new. But unfortunately it is precisely such cases that actually bind do not necessarily need inpatient care, too many forces in our overloaded emergency rooms.”
This has also meant that emergency rooms are only available to a limited extent for the emergency services, so that in many cases longer trips to hospitals that are ready to take them are necessary. Plannable, non-essential operations are also being postponed again without the backlog caused by the winter wave having been worked off.
The phone number of the on-call service is hardly known
The Klinikum Rechts der Isar has a rigorous policy when it comes to patients who do not come to the hospital because of an emergency: “In all of these cases, we can ultimately only refer to the outpatient structures. This is tedious, time-consuming and personnel-intensive – and for them often unsatisfactory for those affected,” says Michael Dommasch, medical director of the central emergency room. “Unfortunately, most of them do not know the telephone number of the on-call service of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians; we refer those affected to this service, in particular to the service for the timely organization of a specialist appointment.”
Because that is an experience that Dommasch made: “A particularly common reason for such emergency visits seems to be the lack of specialist appointments – many of those affected are sent to us by their family doctor.” Overall, the medical director describes the staffing situation in his emergency room as “very tense, but they are still running at full capacity”, which Dommasch attributes to the commitment of the employees. The medical on-call service can be reached on the nationwide telephone number 116117.
The Klinikum Großhadern is also reaching the limits of capacity in the emergency room: When asked whether special preparations were being made because of the heat wave and the emergencies that were to be expected, its manager Matthias Klein answered succinctly: “The care of the current patients is already limited due to reduced resources, Among other things, because of Covid. Further provision is not possible.”
“Elderly people need many weeks of hospitalization to recover”
The municipal Munich clinic with its four houses sees “the health system in Munich under massive pressure”. Managing Director Axel Fischer compares the current situation with that of a year ago: Back then, on August 4, 2021, the Munich Clinic treated four Covid patients. There are currently 161, 23 of them in intensive care. “The patients are no longer as seriously ill as in the first wave, but older people in particular need many weeks of hospitalization to recover,” says Fischer. “In addition, there are more emergencies and other illnesses because people are generally more mobile again.”
Of course, Corona does not stop at the employees – even if they are mostly infected in private life. Then, according to the managing director, they often remain infectious for ten days and then fail until the protection against infection allows them to work again. Fischer: “In addition, there is a lack of colleagues in hospital care who look after their children who have tested positive at home. All in all, this regularly leads to additional, significant staff shortages due to corona in addition to normal absences from illness.”
Fischer expects relief from the recently reinstated medical district coordinators – they should control the flow of patients nationwide. He also calls for financial compensation for the clinics, which, in addition to the pandemic, are also shouldering normal health care in the city: “Otherwise it can’t be done, and the system as a whole is on its knees.”