13 more free covid beds in intensive care in Brussels
More than a sixth of intensive care beds in Brussels are currently closed due to staff cut-offs. That makes the margin in hospitals small, if the number of covid admissions continues as predicted. At the moment, 97 of the 110 available beds for covid patients in Brussels are occupied.
The staff loss is not only a problem in Brussels, but it is noticeably higher than in the rest of the country. according to the newspaper The morning About 223 of the 2,000 available ICU beds in our country are now closed due to staff shortages. That’s 11.1 percent. The federal health inspectorate says that in the eleven Brussels hospitals together, there are no fewer than 49 of the 269 beds, or 18.2 percent. That’s more than one in six beds.
Of the necessary 220 beds, half must still remain free for non-covid care. That’s because we’re still in Phase 1B of the federal hospital plan. For example, there are now 110 covid beds in intensive care available in Brussels. These 97 beds are currently occupied.
“Due to a shortage of staff to provide proper care, our ICU department is indeed from 20 to 14 Jessica Mutaharugamba de Ziekenhuizen Zuid. “Of those 14, half is reserved for covid patients. All seven are occupied. So we are full and we can’t scale up any further.”
Also in Europe hospitals, “some” of the 22 total ICU beds are closed internally due to staff shortages. “We are still trying to provide sufficient covid beds in line with phase 1B, including by receiving them in the medium care unit,” says Jennyfer Doria Tilleux.
The resources point to the short present due to illness from quarantine, but also to quarantine. The Consultation Committee will meet again tomorrow/Friday to discuss measures.
wire transfers
‘We are full’, those are also the sounds from some Flemish hospitals. In Flemish newspapers they talk about full departments and little margin for scaling up. However, the latest predictions by biostatistician Niel Hens (UHasselt/UAntwerp) and his team show a scenario of 1,000 corona patients in intensive care by the end of next week throughout our country. That is 200 more than today. For the Brussels there are no separate forecasts this time. (Read more below the chart)
However, the new hospital admissions in Brussels decrease slightly. Over the four seven days, there were an average of 30 new admissions every day. That is seven percent less than during the period. In the quiet of the country, the new recordings increased by an average of 9 percent in a week. In intensive care the figures are rising both nationally and within Brussels. The admissions to intensive care usually only follow up to two weeks after the regular admissions.
Does Brussels still have margin to include other regions? “We get these questions and transfers have already taken place, but very limited because we also have little capacity,” says Karolien Deprez of UZ Brussel. In the university hospital, 18 reserved ICU beds are now all used by covid patients. In the other 18 beds for non-covid patients, only one bed is available.
“In there until the previous waves, Brussels is standing, but we have to start a little better. We also only have one bed available in the intensive care unit,” says Elke Colpaert of the Sint-Jan Clinic. The hospital reserves seven ICU beds for covid patients. Six of these are now occupied. There have been no transfers from the other regions yet.
Non-urgent care
Scaling up forced to postpone other care, the hospitals say. “We are already preparing for the next phase in the hospital plan and are already making extra beds available,” says Deprez of UZ Brussel. In the next phase 2A, three quarters of all ICU beds should remain free for covid care. In the UZ this comes down to 27 beds. In the whole of Brussels, capacity then goes to 165 beds.
But that’s not so easy. “Our intensive care department is divided into three rooms, and only one of them has the right installations for covid patients,” says Murielle Pletsers of Sint-Pieter Hospital, where all twelve available ICU beds are now full. “If we have to scale up, we have to move. That is a lot of work, but especially not dangerous for the patients, who are often on ventilators.”