Energy prices, high numbers of corona infections and a shortage of nursing staff – hospitals in Germany are facing a difficult winter. How tense is the situation? A report from the University Hospital Dresden.
The ups and downs of the pandemic can be seen at the University Hospital Dresden on small magnets with exclamation marks on them. They hang on a plan at the entrance to the anesthesiological intensive care unit, all the hospital beds are listed on it, along with the names of the patients. The patients with an exclamation mark, “these are the particularly serious cases,” says intensive care nurse Tobias Kolbe.
The situation in many German hospitals is more precarious than it has been for a long time. The clinics are being burdened threefold in these weeks: the corona numbers are increasing, energy prices are climbing to unknown heights and, above all, there is a lack of staff, especially in nursing.