The government-mandated waiver of postponable operations is sorely needed in the district hospitals to care for emergencies and seriously ill Covid patients.
In a few weeks the already enormous load could be twice as high - and hardly manageable.
District - Prof. Florian Krötz currently feels as if he lives in two worlds.
The professional world of the chief physician and pandemic officer of the hospitals in the district is the Starnberg Clinic. “When I visit the Covid station, I talk to panting, completely normal citizens - and outside on the street, normal life goes on. Like when you step out of the Titanic's engine room and onto deck, where the music is playing, ”says Krötz.
No, it is not an exaggeration to compare the situation in the hospitals to a sinking ship.
The doctor tries to make this comparison because he has the impression that some people still do not understand the seriousness of the situation.
The waiver of postponable operations ordered by the government on Wednesday is sorely needed in the hospitals in the district to care for emergencies and seriously ill Covid patients.
According to the Divi Register, 39 of 45 intensive care beds are occupied, nine of them with Covid patients.
In addition, there are many on the normal wards.
According to Krötz, the Starnberg and Tutzing clinics were overloaded on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Constant patient transfers in the region are the rule.
The main problem is the catastrophic personnel situation in nursing
The main problem is the catastrophic personnel situation in nursing. Krötz hears of layoffs “weekly”. Dr. Lorenz Nowak, chief intensive care physician at the Gautinger Asklepios pulmonary clinic, says: "We could operate more beds, especially in the intensive care unit, if we had the necessary nursing staff." Help out intensive care units. "This is a kind of relief for the clinics, even if only for a shorter period of time," says Nowak. The downside: "You can feel the displeasure and fear in some patients and also in their relatives."
Knee or hip operations are often cited as examples of postponable operations.
According to the pandemic officer Krötz, it can also be heart or tumor operations.
For example, procedures that remove tissue to make a diagnosis.
It may well be these days that patients have to live with the uncertainty two or four weeks longer - "psychologically an unbelievable burden," says Krötz.
Patients usually respond with understanding.
They are often put off for an indefinite period of time, as Sylke Will, spokeswoman for the Tutzingen Benedictus Hospital, confirms: "It is of course difficult at the moment to make an exact appointment because the improvement in the situation cannot yet be foreseen."
No visits to the Gautinger Clinic from Monday
According to the Starnberg chief physician Krötz, it is inevitable that the situation will get much worse. Purely mathematically. Because the incidence value relates to two-week-old cases and the disease reaches its peak after ten days, the patients who were infected about three weeks ago are currently being admitted to the clinics. At that time, however, the incidence in the district was still 142. It is now 456, which means it has more than tripled. "We are already under extreme stress," says Krötz. It will not be possible to care for twice as many patients. “We don't know how that should work.” Bleak prospects for the next few weeks.
The Gautinger Clinic, currently occupied by eleven corona patients, is preparing as best it can.
From Monday there will also be a complete ban on visits, the sleep laboratory is closed until further notice, and many patients who receive long-term ventilation at home but have to go to the clinic every now and then are put off.
After all: the district pandemic officer Krötz does not see completely black.
It is important to continue to distribute the burden of emergencies well among the clinics.
"I am convinced that we will succeed."