At least 32 corona cases among employees and patients at the Garmisch-Partenkirchen Clinic - all operations that can be planned must be canceled.
The hospital is in crisis mode.
Garmisch-Partenkirchen
- It is a scenario that no medical facility would want: In the Garmisch-Partenkirchen Clinic, there has been an increase in Covid-19 infections.
This is reported by the district
hospital
in a
press release.
The result: The
415-bed house
in the district is now in
crisis mode
- and is limited to the essentials.
The primary goal of the extensive safety precautions that an in-house crisis team has defined in close coordination with the health department: Risks are to be reduced and thus the virus should not spread.
Garmisch-Partenkirchen Clinic switches to emergency operation
In concrete terms, this means that from now on only
emergencies will be
treated and treatments that are absolutely necessary from a medical point of view will be carried out, for example for pain or tumor patients.
However, all operations that can be planned are postponed until further notice.
There are no alternative dates yet.
It is also not yet clear, it is said, when the regular operating theater will start again.
Outpatient operations, consultation hours and family room offers have also been canceled for the time being.
Corona outbreak!
Infected at least 32 people
Managing director Frank Niederbühl
calls the whole thing an
"alarming state".
Nevertheless, one should be prepared for this situation.
This is part of the course of a pandemic.
On Tuesday evening, he said, routine tests showed that patients and employees who are
treated or work
outside the
corona isolation
wards are
positive
.
This affects departments on the second and fifth floors.
How this could happen is still unclear.
The tricky thing about it: the tests are not one hundred percent reliable.
Even if you are negative, you could still have the dangerous pathogen of a lung disease in you - and have introduced it.
In any case, the number of positive cases rose within a very short time: Thursday evening (January 14, 2020) there was talk of 21 patients and 11 employees.
Niederbühl does not want to speak of an outbreak yet.
Now it is a matter of reacting quickly and specifically, emphasizes the clinic director.
“We want to fully clarify the infection process.” This is a complex detective work.
Because contacts have to be traced and, above all, a large number of people - all employees and patients - have to be systematically tested.
Various methods are used here.
The action will probably take several days.
The pace is enormous: on Thursday alone, around 380 PCR tests and 500 rapid tests were carried out.
The clinic receives support from the health department.
You also work with external laboratories to relieve your own.
According to Niederbühl, a total of 39 corona cases (as of January 14) are currently being treated in the clinic.
Since the two isolation wards are already occupied, additional areas have been created for this purpose.
The switch to emergency operation should provide the necessary capacities for this - both in terms of space and personnel.
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