Preparations for the corona pandemic have been going on for weeks in the Murnau accident clinic. The flagship facility feels well armed - also for the treatment of a large number of seriously ill people. An emergency patient who has tested positive for the virus has been treated since the weekend.
Murnau - The accident insurance clinic Murnau (UKM) is, as the name suggests, actually specialized in the treatment of accident victims. Nevertheless, the renowned trauma center has been preparing for the feared Corona storm for some time. A crisis team was called up about three weeks ago, as the press department announced when Tagblatt asked. The tenor: The clinic - with around 2200 employees one of the largest employers in the region - is also ideally positioned for the current challenge.
"The house has an isolation station and is medically, nursing and technically armed to treat infectious patients at the highest medical level," says the medical director, Prof. Dr. Fabian Stuby. "For us, the Murnau Codex still applies that no emergency patient is rejected." The emergency services are instructed to first bring people with a Covid 19 infection - as doctors call the Corona disease - into the surrounding houses. "However, due to the limited intensive capacities of the surrounding clinics, the BG Unfallklinik Murnau currently expects to also treat a large number of patients suffering from Covid-19," says Stuby. So far, only a corona sufferer who has come because of a neurological emergency is accommodated there. His condition is said to be clinically stable.
Extensive arrangements have been made. These include: Visitors have been banned for around a week and a half to minimize the risk of infection. Only employees and emergency patients are allowed to enter the clinic. The UKM site is currently looking deserted. All events and team meetings were canceled and replaced by other forms of communication. Operations that were not urgently needed have been postponed until further notice. The number of shots also decreased significantly. The clinic is currently only half full. This creates additional capacity for corona cases. Two care stations have been cleared for this purpose. In the intensive care unit, the UKM has 42 beds in normal operation. In addition, there are 18 beds of the so-called intensive care. A maximum of 70 ventilation places are available.
Dr. welcomes the fact that social life in Germany has largely been shut down to curb the spread of the virus. Michael Ebenhoch, who heads the Department of Hygiene, Clinical Infectiology and Microbiology: “In my opinion, there are no alternatives to the initial restrictions and the only effective way to flatten the infection curve. This is urgently necessary in order not to overload our health care system in Germany, as is currently the case in Italy or Spain. This is the only way we can help each patient in the best possible way, ”explains the expert - and appeals to everyone,“ to follow the rules as long as there is no effective therapy or vaccination against the virus ”.
Protecting your own staff and patients is "the top priority", says UKM Managing Director Sarah Heinze. "That is why we very quickly decided on extensive security measures in the crisis team." For example, pregnant and immunocompromised employees were immediately distanced from patient care or team meetings were reorganized to avoid group formation.
