Overcrowded intensive care units, burned-out staff: DIVI leader predicts devastating corona consequences

Christian Karagiannidis, head of the intensive care unit registry, fears emergency situations in German clinics - especially after the pandemic.

"We miss every exit to reduce the numbers"

Berlin - The German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (DIVI) provides daily information about the utilization of intensive care beds in German hospitals.

The head, Christian Karagiannidis (47), is very concerned about the medical staff in the hospitals.

Especially after the corona pandemic.

As he

told

, many decision-makers are not fully aware of the critical situation and stress in the hospitals: "It makes me despair that people do not understand what this third corona wave means for the hospitals," said Karagiannidis.

Despite the short break last summer, the clinic staff would increasingly reach their limits - physically and mentally.

DIVI manager raises the alarm for hospital staff: "I see it pretty black now."

Therefore, according to him, it is only a matter of time before the employees are completely exhausted: “It simply makes a difference whether there are 3,000 Covid patients in the intensive care units in the first wave and the staff is highly motivated.

Or whether there are now 5,000 Covid patients - who come in addition to all the other patients - are on the wards and the staff has now burned out ”.

This overload is also dangerous in the long term after the coronavirus pandemic, as more and more clinic employees are leaving for their own protection.

The fact that this is accompanied by the problem of the lack of young hospital staff is devastating.

According to him, “a whole generation” of employees would be lost.

Due to the “galloping shortage of staff”, he fears that dozens of clinics will soon have to fear for their existence.

"I see it pretty black now," said Karagiannidis.

Scientists consider a hard lockdown for at least two weeks to be inevitable

According to the DIVI leader, a hard lockdown of at least two weeks is inevitable to counteract this.

"It has to happen now," Karagiannidis said on

.

There, in an appeal to the government, he asked how much the numbers should rise before the decision-makers take action.

"We miss every exit to cut the numbers," he wrote.

Despite the great discipline of the Germans regarding the measures, such as wearing FFP2 masks against the coronavirus, the population was "tricked" by the British virus mutant.

Now, where adolescents and children form additional sources of infection, regional special models make sense in themselves, "but not at this point in time".

The infection rates in Germany are simply too high for that.

At the moment there is a need for nationwide, uniform rules.