Yes. The third set of outbreaks in Germany continues, with more than 5,000 new crowns now requiring intensive care treatment in the country, German media reported on 25 local time. Despite Germany's ample medical resources, healthcare workers are on the verge of reaching their physical and psychological limits.
Germany is understood to have around 10,000 intensive care beds available for use in emergencies, but the lack of healthcare workers is acute. Difficulties have already been encountered as a result in the outbreak hotspots of Thuringia and Saxony, as well as in major cities such as Cologne, Leipzig and Munich. Cologne University Hospital Thoracic Surgery Director Valles said in an interview with German media on the same day, the hospital was originally provided to the heart surgery patients of the 24 intensive care beds have now been divided into 10 to prepare for the use of new crowns of serious patients. That has forced some heart bypass and valve surgeries to be postponed.
Meanwhile, critically ill patients in the third wave of the outbreak are staying in intensive care for a longer average period of time than they did in the first and second waves, placing a huge burden on caregivers.
Vaccination effect showing first signs
A growing number of German regions are running out of available intensive care beds, according to statistics from the German Intensive Care Association.On April 16, five intensive care patients from the state of Thuringia were taken by helicopter to intensive care wards in Hamburg, Bad Kissingen, Wolfsburg and Osnabrück. "We had to make such coordinated transfers that the hospitals were at their limits," Bauer, medical director of intensive care at Jena University Hospital in Thuringia, said in an interview. The average age of the 30 new crown-critical patients under his care was 50.
In response, Bauer argued that it shows the vaccination efforts have had an effect, and that the age of the critically ill patients is starting to drop. We need to overload the workforce and are also actively mobilizing general nursing staff who volunteer their services to the ICU," he said. Since last week, the Bundeswehr has also started providing support to us."
References to Beijing Daily above - Third set of outbreaks continues, healthcare workers on the verge of being stretched to the limit in Germany's outbreak hotspots