The nursing director of the district clinic, Dr.
Peter Huber, gives insights into the current requirements for nursing staff in the interview
For the employees of the Ebersberg district clinic, the past few days have been another show of strength.
The number of people who need help in hospital due to a corona infection has increased enormously.
And with it, once again, the burden on the medical and nursing staff.
Dr.
Peter Huber, nursing director of the district clinic, explains why nurses who care for Covid 19 patients are subject to particularly high technical, physical and mental demands.
Why is the care of Covid patients in an intensive care unit even more demanding for colleagues in nursing?
For most of our intensive care specialists, who are mostly trained over a five-year period, the care of Covid patients represents a special technical challenge. The state of health of Covid patients in the intensive care unit is always critical. Covid patients are all ventilated with the help of a ventilator that is difficult to operate and are very unstable. The highest level of professional competence is required in order to adapt to rapidly changing cardiovascular situations and changes in wakefulness, for example the parameters on the ventilator or the administration of circulatory or sedative medication, to recognize critical situations immediately and to inform the doctors about them in good time. In addition, there is the high level of physical strain. When an intensive care nurse goes to a Covid patient's room,she wears a protective gown made of plastic, gloves, protective goggles, a hood and an FFP2 mask - because stricter protective and hygienic measures are necessary and people have to be isolated. For example, using this equipment to lay overweight patients from their backs onto their stomachs is physically very strenuous. A nurse is constantly on the move and even breathes against the resistance of the FFP2 mask, which also saps energy. You can think of it as going jogging with an FFP2 mask on. Nobody can take that for long. We have to endure it. That makes caring for Covid patients more physically demanding.and people need to be isolated. For example, using this equipment to lay overweight patients from their backs onto their stomachs is physically very strenuous. A nurse is constantly on the move and even breathes against the resistance of the FFP2 mask, which also saps energy. You can think of it as going jogging with an FFP2 mask on. Nobody can take that for long. We have to endure it. That makes caring for Covid patients more physically demanding.and people need to be isolated. For example, using this equipment to lay overweight patients from their backs onto their stomachs is physically very strenuous. A nurse is constantly on the move and even breathes against the resistance of the FFP2 mask, which also saps energy. You can think of it as going jogging with an FFP2 mask on. Nobody can take that for long. We have to endure it. That makes caring for Covid patients more physically demanding.like jogging with an FFP2 mask. Nobody can take that for long. We have to endure it. That makes caring for Covid patients more physically demanding.like jogging with an FFP2 mask. Nobody can take that for long. We have to endure it. That makes caring for Covid patients more physically demanding.
How would you describe the difference in mental stress?
If vital parameters such as blood pressure, heart rate, blood oxygen saturation or parameters on the ventilator or dialysis machine deteriorate, the monitors give an immediate alarm. This means that the nursing staff must be able to recognize the often very complex causes immediately, either react to them themselves and decide whether a doctor needs to be consulted. That is an extremely high level of responsibility and it is also a great mental challenge for the colleagues. In addition, colleagues have to dispose of this protective equipment very carefully and in a concentrated manner when they leave the patient room. Otherwise you could pick up the coronavirus yourself or pass it on to colleagues or other patients. Working with Covid patients is always accompanied by the constant concerninfecting yourself and risking your own life. Another thing that puts additional mental stress on our colleagues in intensive care: The Covid patients who are now lying there are significantly younger than they were before in the pandemic and are usually not vaccinated. 50- or 60-year-olds also die now. A very high proportion could have been prevented by vaccination. That takes us mentally a lot.
There are now three Corona wards again in the Ebersberg District Clinic for patients who do not have to be treated in the intensive care unit. What is the challenge for the staff there?
Before these wards had to be converted, there were internal medicine patients and so-called short stayers. These are patients who are relatively fit and can go home after a planned procedure after a few days. We also had to close our acute geriatric ward. Now the colleagues are dealing with a completely different patient group. They care for patients between 20 and 90 years of age with different previous illnesses and basically similar symptoms: fever, severe feeling of illness, shortness of breath. You are challenged to adapt to these new requirements and corresponding forms of therapy within a very short time. And the nursing staff - as in intensive care - has to put on their protective clothing every time they go to a patient's room.Even just opening the window once means a correspondingly high expenditure of time.
Switching to a job other than the one you are used to is exhausting in any job. But there is more to it mentally in the care of Covid patients, right?
The patients there are stressed by the isolation, which triggers fear and they also call for the nursing staff more often. Many patients get worse, can no longer cope with the normal administration of oxygen and have to be transferred to the intensive care unit. Patients experience acute shortness of breath, become exhausted when breathing and are terrified to death. Giving the patient peace and security despite all the hectic pace and implementation of medical measures is extremely mentally challenging and takes a lot of strength from the nursing staff. This does not leave our employees unaffected.
What is the district clinic doing to support the nursing staff during these difficult times?
The fourth wave is much more extreme than ever, although we are still a long way from the peak of the load. We are currently looking for people who previously worked in nursing or who are currently studying medicine. You can keep your back a little bit free for our employees. Internally, by suspending planned operations and corresponding reorganization, we try to deploy nursing staff from other departments in the COVID areas. Although this is the fourth time this has happened, the solidarity among the nursing staff in the Ebersberg district clinic is very high. As the person responsible for the entire care and functional area, I am very proud of that.
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