Declining corona infections are also noticeable in the intensive care units with a slight delay. Nevertheless, the topic of Covid-19 is not over there. In all of Lower Franconia, 32 Covid 19 patients were still being treated in the intensive care units at the beginning of the week. 15 of them, almost half, had to be ventilated.
This means that just under seven percent of the total of 471 intensive care beds in Lower Franconia are occupied by patients who are acutely ill with Covid-19. Nevertheless, elective, i.e. plannable, operations can be carried out again with almost no restrictions in all hospitals in the region.
Personnel is still required
But can the staff in the intensive care units take a deep breath? After the enormous stress in the past few months, the decline in the number of patients means a significant relief, reports Anja Hildenbrand from the Main-Spessart Clinic. Since four out of a total of eleven Covid-19 patients still have to be treated in the intensive care unit at the Klinikum Würzburg Mitte, the staff is still required, according to the Medical Director Dr. Matthias Held. However, the clearly relaxed dynamic allows the staff to breathe a little more often.
“There is a certain relaxation,” says the medical director and head of anesthesia at Schweinfurt’s St. Josef Hospital, Dr. Wolfgang Menger. “But seriously ill patients fit in smoothly.” In addition, there is an increased emergency volume, reports the Rhön-Klinikum-Campus Bad Neustadt (district of Rhön-Grabfeld).
Operations can take place again
Nevertheless, operations that can be planned are again fully performed at practically all hospitals in the region. “The surgical program can be described as almost normal again,” said Wilfried Neubauer, director of the Haßberg clinics. Operations at the Leopoldina Hospital in Schweinfurt have been back to normal since the beginning of June, says press spokeswoman Indre Marie Leikert. “All elective interventions can take place without restrictions.”
Planned interventions had been canceled in many clinics. “In the past few months we have had to postpone some elective interventions,” says Kathrin Kupka-Hahn, spokeswoman for the St. Josef Hospital in Schweinfurt. During the high phase of the third corona wave, some patients also decided not to have an operation. Katrin Schmitt from the Rhön-Klinikum-Campus Bad Neustadt reports something similar: Here, too, there is an increasing number of catch-up operations.
On the other hand, there is a special situation in the Thorax Center Münnerstadt (district of Bad Kissingen): “Since we usually get the Covid intensive care patients from other clinics after a lengthy intensive course to wean the mechanical ventilation, we have a time delay to the course of the current Corona- Numbers, “explains Jan Koch, senior physician in charge of the intensive care unit. There is still a waiting list for these so-called weaning patients. The Würzburg University Clinic and the Würzburg Mitte Clinic also treat such long-term Covid patients who are no longer infectious in their intensive care units.
Many Covid patients stay in intensive care for an extremely long time
The problem is that many of these post-Covid patients are in the intensive care unit for a long time, explains Jan Koch. They therefore needed early rehabilitation before the actual rehabilitation. There is a constant high demand here; the Thorax Center in Münnerstadt, for example, can only take on a fraction of the requests.
Some clinics are meanwhile reducing their corona infection areas: “There are no patients with Covid-19 in the normal wards, we have closed a separate area,” says Dr. Uwe Pfeiffle, commercial director of the Kitzinger Land clinic. Only three rooms are still provided for possible Covid cases, but are currently not occupied.
“In the meantime we have been able to cut the isolation department for Covid-19 patients in half and will continue to reduce it in the course of the week,” says Wilfried Neubauer from the Haßberg Clinics. The Rhön-Klinikum-Campus Bad Neustadt and the Klinikum Würzburg Mitte, however, are sticking to their special Covid-19 isolation areas for the time being.
Can the vaccination rate prevent the corona numbers from rising again?
Nevertheless, the clinics must continue to care for Covid 19 patients. Most of them do not require intensive care, but have to be treated as inpatients. The two hospitals in Schweinfurt, Leopoldina and St. Josef, have 17 such patients.
And so the clinic managers urge caution. “Corona is not over yet,” says Anja Hildenbrand, Head of Communications at the Main-Spessart Clinic: “We therefore ask everyone to continue to adhere to the applicable regulations and thus further reduce the numbers.” It remains to be seen “whether, after the current easing, the vaccination quota will be sufficient to prevent the numbers from rising again,” warns Jan Koch from the Thoraxzentrum Münnerstadt.
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