Corona: Will doctors in Germany soon have to make horror decisions? "Better keep the last beds free"

When the number of free ICU beds is too few, doctors can face a difficult decision.

Sometimes it is a matter of life or death.

• The corona pandemic is affecting health systems around the world.

• In many hospitals the capacity limits have almost been reached.

• Dramatic decisions are made for doctors.

Munich - In rare cases,

confronted

with such a large number of

that they can no longer control them.

In serious accidents with an

or in the

,

for example

,

are faced with the worst choice: They have to

decide

very quickly between

and

.

The

have set in such scenarios that

are treated first and who is not helping more.

A procedure that has been around since the 19th century.

It is called

, derived from the French word “trier”, which translates as sorting or selecting.

Because of Corona: Triage - horror decisions about life and death

This day makes the

the

in many places reach their limits, therefore also renewed discussions about the treatment kindled sick.

It is not always where hospitals can help: Absence of the

, and patients must be based on the principle of triage partially

are.

In Italy, for example, there were

catastrophic conditions in the hospitals there

during the first

.

The flood of people

with

overwhelmed the country's health system, with particularly bad conditions in Lombardy.

The physicians were placed in

.

"I have come into a situation that

demands

," said the doctor Francesca Mangiatordi, who worked in Cremona at the time.

The corona development is similarly

these

days

, and for many doctors there could be another

.

May this cup please pass us by. # Triage pic.twitter.com/j4MfBli39Q

- goia (@goia) November 1, 2020

Corona: Swiss doctor had to use triage and reject the seriously ill

Belgium has to use triage, and

some clinics in

already reached the limits of their capacity.

This is how Bienvenido Sanchez, who works as a senior

physician in several hospitals in the canton of Valais, described that he was

in a previous case

.

At the end of October, the doctor had

an

who was seriously ill with corona

a

.

"Normally we would have taken this person in so that they had at least a minimal chance of survival," Sanchez described the

.

“In the current situation, however, I

keep the last

"

After the tragic case in Valais became known, debates broke out about

and its

, which were established by the

in March.

In particular, the

mentioned

in the

were discussed controversially.

These have recently been adjusted and given a point

on so-called “frailty scores”.

Corona: Germany threatens shortage of intensive care beds in a few weeks

In the case of insufficient intensive care beds in Switzerland, people

or only when they are fit or need little care.

Older people

with serious diseases such as liver cirrhosis, chronic kidney failure or heart failure can hospitals

are.

The same applies to

over 65 years of age.

Swiss lawyers strongly criticized the guide.

Every patient has the right to be examined.

Meanwhile, there are

currently enough

available

in

: However, experts fear that

the capacity limits of hospitals

could be exceeded in the next four to eight weeks.

Then German doctors could also face brutal decisions.

List of rubric lists: © Claudio Furlan / LaPresse via ZUMA Press / dpa / picture alliance