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Heidelberg University Hospital: "This can also happen to us"
Photo: Uwe Anspach / picture alliance / dpa
The University Hospital Heidelberg apparently no longer rules out triage due to the sharp increase in the number of Covid 19 patients and full intensive care units.
The senior medical director of the university clinic, Ingo Autenrieth, told a local radio station: “We haven't had triage yet, but that could happen.
We are prepared for it. "
A triage situation forces health professionals to decide which patients will receive vital treatments such as ventilation - and which will not - because of scarce resources.
Autenrieth from Heidelberg University Hospital said in an interview with Radio Regenbogen: "We have not experienced a situation like this in Heidelberg or anywhere else in Germany in the past 50 or 60 years."
Shortly before, the case of a hospital in Zittau in Saxony caused a sensation because a doctor had confirmed the use of triage.
The medical director of the Oberlausitzer Bergland Clinic, Mathias Mengel, had reportedly said on Tuesday evening in an online forum that this decision was nothing new for him and his employees.
Mengel told the news portal “T-Online”: “In the past few days we have been in the situation several times that we had to decide who gets oxygen and who doesn't.”
The clinic denied the statement.
"A classic triage of who is allowed to live and who is not, we didn't have to make this decision yet," Martina Weber, social affairs officer of the Görlitz district, told SPIEGEL.
Some patients have to be transferred to other hospitals because the clinic is busy.
"But: We can care for the patients regionally, we will do that by Christmas," said Weber.
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lmd / dpa