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Dordrecht – Due to great pressure on birth care, the Albert Schweitzer hospital has asked for help from other hospitals in the region this week. They immediately declared their willingness to take over deliveries or care for newborns and mothers if necessary.
The Albert Schweitzer hospital asks women who are about to give birth and primary care midwives to take into account the possibility that they may have to move to a hospital in Rotterdam, for example. This is expected to continue until the end of the summer holidays.
absenteeism
“We are currently facing a major shortage of specialized nurses, especially neonatology nurses”, explains gynecologist Bettina Akerboom about the capacity problem. “This is partly due to an unusually high level of absenteeism due to illness, especially during the holiday season. As a result, we cannot use our normal maximum number of beds. In addition, we are dealing with a wave of viral infections in babies and young children that we normally only see in the winter. This means that pediatric nurses are temporarily unable to assist in the neonatology department. At times, a premature baby cannot reach it if we want to continue to provide safe care and of course we want to.”
To shove
But possibly having to move to another hospital does not only apply to women who give birth too early. Akerboom: “Within the hospital we can, to a certain extent, shift nurses with a similar specialization to the place where the shortage is greatest. As a result, the Rhena Birth Center may also have less occupancy on some days than normal, so that we may not be able to receive all simultaneous births there. We may also have to move a planned delivery to another day at the last minute. We realize how annoying and drastic that is for parents who had prepared for a birth with us, or on a planned date, but it is force majeure.”
Capacity meeting
Director Diederik Zijderveld of the Albert Schweitzer hospital has submitted the request for help in the consultation of ROAZ, the Regional Consultation Acute Care Chain in which fourteen hospitals work together. “They all recognize this same problem to a greater or lesser extent,” says Zijderveld. “The willingness to take over deliveries and newborns from each other is great. We have agreed that from now on a daily capacity meeting will take place, in which each hospital indicates what the expected crowds are for the coming days and who has free space. It can therefore also happen the other way around that we sometimes take over a delivery if the crowds are greater elsewhere. We have gained a lot of experience with this form of spreading in times of corona and it works well.”
Zijderveld expects the working method to take several weeks, until at the most in the course of September. He hopes to use it as little as possible. The situation varies from day to day. Expectant parents will hear from their obstetrician or gynaecologist whether diversion is necessary.
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