According to the President of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (Divi), Gernot Marx, the situation in the intensive care units in German clinics is unusually tense for a summer. “We have to make sure again that we keep our ranks closed, which means we have to shift staff, we have to get staff out of the office, so after two weekends we also work the third weekend,” said Marx on Monday in the ZDF “Morgenmagazin “. “We unfortunately have to postpone some operations that are not absolutely necessaryso that we can take care of all our emergencies properly and safely.”
Marx had already pointed out at the weekend that more than half of the intensive care units (55 percent) are no longer running as usual. Various factors are coming together, as he made clear on Monday. Currently, not only are twice as many Covid patients being treated in intensive care as at the same time last year, there are also almost 2,000 fewer intensive care beds available and many employees in the clinics are sick.
“I wouldn’t call it dramatic, but it’s very tense, and that’s unusual for this time of summer, when it’s usually always a bit quieter,” Marx said. The situation in the intensive care units is felt to be the same as in autumn or winter. The Divi President warned that it was really time to make healthcare professions attractive again.