Criticism from the right – “Austria has more than 2000 intensive care beds, we not even 900”
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While the fifth wave is on the march, the SVP criticizes the lack of intensive care beds in hospitals. There is no lack of money, says Health Minister Alain Berset (SP).
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- Daniel Graf
- Daniel Krähenbühl
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Health Minister Alain Berset said on Thursday in a live talk compared to 20 minutes that it will not be a question of financing whether the hospitals are well prepared for the wave.
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The SVP has long been demanding that the beds in the intensive care units be increased. “I cannot understand why the last two years have not been used to train more staff,” says SVP National Councilor Albert Rösti.
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Yvonne Ribi, managing director of the Nursing Staff Association, counters: “To train staff in two years who can work fully on an IPS ward is a dream.”
In the 20-minute live talk, Health Minister Alain Berset answers questions, including about the capacities of the hospitals. That is a matter for the cantons. When asked whether the federal government could not make more money available so that the cantons can expand hospital capacities, Berset said: “At this moment it must not be a question of finances.”
The SVP had already demanded at the end of August that Switzerland increase to 1200 to 1300 beds in the intensive care units. “In order to prevent any overburdening of the health care system, this is targeted and, on the whole, cheaper,” wrote the SVP. According to Tobias Bär, media spokesman for the Conference of Health Directors (GDK), there are currently 873 certified IPS places available (as of September 10th).
“We would have had two years”
Albert Rösti, SVP National Councilor and Vice President of the Commission for Social Security and Health, criticizes this sharply: “I don’t understand why Switzerland has so few IPS places. Austria has roughly the same number of inhabitants and over 2000 IPS places. ” He does not accept the “excuse” that there is a lack of staff: “We have been in the pandemic for two years and would have had enough time to recruit staff. Then we would now have a reserve and could face the winter more calmly. ”
Rösti calls for this to be made up for now: “The corona numbers could pick up again next year and unfortunately it will not have been the last pandemic.”
“It is not enough just to say that it would take years”
FDP National Councilor Marcel Dobler also says that in this crisis of the century, the question of whether enough has been done to expand the IPS capacities must be allowed. “Simply saying that it would take years to train the staff is not enough. Certain tasks on an IPS station can also be carried out after a shorter training period. ”
Dobler admits, however. It is clear that one cannot simply train specialist staff “in advance”: “In order to be able to cover costs, when around 80 percent of the IPS beds are occupied. If you train too many staff, if you can find them, they will be unemployed after the big waves, which cannot be the point. ”
Dobler also states: “We are currently far from overloading the health system.” An expansion of the IPS capacities by ten or 20 percent also only brings a slight delay of a few weeks: “In a pandemic with exponential growth, hardly anything is gained. The goal must be to break the waves as early as possible. “
“Hospitals have done everything to be prepared”
Yvonne Ribi, managing director of the Swiss professional association of nursing professionals SBK, counters criticism of the IPS capacities: “The hospitals and the training companies have done a lot to be as prepared as possible.”
To remedy the deficiency in two years and to train enough staff who could work fully on an IPS ward is a dream: “This training is a postgraduate course. Sufficient qualified nursing staff with diploma training would be required for this. But there is already a shortage everywhere. ” Simply teaching someone in six months how to roll people around in bed – which is also important – is not enough to increase IPS capacities.
Ribi makes it clear: “There are no quick solutions.” In future health crises, however, there would be possibilities: “One possibility would be a pool of well-trained health personnel who work in other areas or industries at normal times and can be reduced to the IPS in an emergency. This requires more attractive training and working conditions and regular training. And of course these people have to be rewarded in one form or another. “
As the cantons emphasized in a 20-minute survey, no certified IPS beds were dismantled during the pandemic. However, qualified IPS staff is rare and cannot be re-trained within a short period of time.
An increase in the number of IPS beds, as in the first wave, in which up to 1500 IPS beds were made available, is no longer so easy, says GDK spokesman Tobias Bär. “These beds were operated outside of the certified scope of the intensive care units and with intensive care support staff.” However, the specialist staff on the wards has been heavily used for a very long time and can no longer be called up for special missions. The continued exposure leads to signs of wear and tear and absences. “The situation in the intensive care units is still tense.” If the number of hospitalizations increases again, it becomes “very quickly, very tight”. The main victims are then not primarily the staff of the intensive care units, but rather the patients die. “Also and especially the non-Covid-19 patients who need urgent treatment that may then have to be postponed.”
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