The FPS Public Health asks all Belgian hospitals to gradually scale up to phase 1b of the distribution plan by 22 March. Non-urgent care must also be postponed again. This is stated in a letter sent by the FPS Public Health to the hospitals on Tuesday.
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On February 26, Minister of Health Frank Vandenbroucke (SP.A) had already asked hospitals to switch to phase 1b, but there was no postponement of other care at that time. As the figures initially stabilized, the deadline was also pushed back in a later letter. So now it is again being asked to scale up and some non-urgent non-covid care needs to be postponed again.
‘Necessary medical interventions will of course still take place,’ said Wendy Lee, spokesperson for the FPS Public Health. ‘It is about care that can be postponed so that the wards are not unnecessarily burdened’.
In addition, the FPS Public Health also asks to respect the visiting schedule of hospitals. In concrete terms, this means that people who do not need to be in hospital are also asked not to go there in order to limit the risk of infection.
Phase 1b of the spreading plan means that fifty percent of intensive care beds must be reserved for covid patients. That equates to 1,000 beds in intensive care. Four times as many beds must be kept free in the non-intensive wards.
The fact that hospitals will scale up to 1b automatically means that other care will be jeopardized. Geert Meyfroidt, intensivist at UZ Leuven, explained this in The news. Especially interventions that involve patients in intensive care will be postponed, says Meyfroidt. He confirms that the number of corona patients in hospitals is also increasing in Flemish Brabant.
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