Agatharied hospital: fewer corona patients, but staff worries

Created: 2022-01-19Updated: 2022-01-19, 5:48 p.m

By: Christian Masengarb

Agatharied hospital: Fewer corona patients, but staff worries © Archive TP

There are currently few Covid cases in the hospital.

Because numerous doctors and nurses are ill or have to be in quarantine and at the same time many emergencies come to the clinic, the situation remains tense.

Agatharied – Even if the Agatharied hospital is currently treating few corona patients, the pandemic is causing concern for the clinic: Many employees are absent due to illness and quarantine, says hospital spokeswoman Melanie Speicher.

Because the increasing incidence is likely to increase these failures and at the same time “an unusually large number of emergencies” are hospitalized, this emergency personnel plan is being drawn up in order to continue to care for all patients despite shortages of doctors and nurses.

The status of two weeks ago:

Agatharied: the hospital catches up on urgent surgeries – hope for “less severe courses”

Agatharied hospital: fewer corona patients, but staff worries

Because of the many accidents and the absence of staff, the hospital has not yet reduced the backlog of urgent surgeries that has formed as a result of the pandemic. The clinic currently operates only five out of seven operating rooms, explains Speicher. Working through the waiting list is so difficult.

Speicher also cautiously assesses the hope that Omikron could reduce the number of patients in the long term: "We can only speculate about this at the moment." The situation is still "relatively calm".

According to Speicher, there was only one corona patient in the Agatharied intensive care unit on Wednesday and eight in the normal ward - significantly fewer than a few weeks ago.

However, experiences from abroad and warnings from the World Health Organization suggested that the mass of those expected to be infected alone would also result in many inpatient treatments.

Experience has shown that this effect only becomes apparent two or three weeks after the increase in incidence.

So the clinic has to wait.

"We drive on sight," says Speicher.

“We plan two to three days in advance, no more.

We don't know what the situation will be next week."

For patients and visitors, this means that the hospital will maintain its pandemic rules for the time being.

The strategy aimed at a high level of security worked well, says Speicher.

“We want to stick to that.

Anything else would be reckless at the moment.”