It is a kind of life raft in one of the regions of Germany hardest hit by the fourth corona wave: the Ludwig Maximilians University Clinic in Munich . According to the nationwide intensive care registry, the hospital, which is one of the largest and most important in Europe, is as of today quickly no more intensive care bed available . Nevertheless, several clinics across Bavaria bit the LMU clinic for help because they can no longer deal with particularly badly affected corona patients.
Nobody knows how long it can do that . But nurses and doctors fight every day in Munich-Großhadern to ensure that everyone, including people with and without corona disease, get treatment. What does that mean in concrete terms?
Daily mirrorReporter Dennis Pohl accompanies the doctors today exclusively in a livereport . Read here in real time what is currently going on in the clinic . From planning the intensive occupancy to care and emergencies:
Live report from the clinic
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A patient dies, a bed becomes free
The patient died the evening before. His place is already planned for the next one.
Credit: Dennis Pohl
Meanwhile, a room has become free at ITS 4. A Covid patient who was after a Kidney transplant war that came in, died. Monday evening, 8:04 p.m. Stern-Streter was still trying to revive him . But nothing to be done, as he says. The dead man has already been taken away, but not yet fully booked in the system . At 7 o’clock, however, his place was taken again to someone from the operating room.
A little later, ITS 4, where nine Covid patients are being treated, becomes hectic. “Mr. Ö. got bad overnight “ says a doctor on duty to Stern-Straeter. It is a patient with a transplanted lung. Therefore he could not be vaccinated. “Are we doing ECMO?” asks the doctor. She strongly suspects a pulmonary embolism. Let’s see, says Stern.
Doctors at Mr. Ö’s bed.
Credit: Dennis Pohl
At the same time, an elderly patient is intubated two beds further. “She can no longer do it alone, not even with a mask” says Stern. Four nurses prepare her to be sedated, the tube that is about to be inserted into her throat is already ready. She is breathing heavily under her white nightgown .
The patient is being prepared to be intubated
Credit: Dennis Pohl
Opposite, however, is a 28-year-old. She was pregnant when she contracted Corona , that’s why she didn’t get vaccinated, say the doctors here. Above her bed are some photos of the premature baby who was recently fetched from the colleagues in the maternity ward. She has never seen it, not even the photos. She has been in a coma on the electrical lung, the ECMO, for weeks . “She is doing very badly,” says Stern. His colleague raises her eyebrows and is silent.
The ECMO machine is the last hope for particularly severe corona cases.
Credit: Dennis Pohl
Staff shortage in the cardiac ward for children
Back in the senior physician’s room, update patient data. Stern-Straeter has summarized all Covid patients in a table, including the care capacities. G9B is displayed as red, in the corresponding line it says: “Critical lack of care” . It is the heart station for children. They actually have eight beds available, says Stern. “They can only drive four.” Too little personal.
View of the cardiac ward for children at the Großhadern Clinic. (Archive image)
Credit: dpa
If I didn’t have such good opportunities here, such a high medical level, such a great team, I wouldn’t be able to do any of this.
Stefan Stern-Streter
Has worked in the intensive care unit for 28 years: Dr. Stefan Straeter
Credit: Dennis Pohl
The burden is anyway extremely high . When he and two of his colleagues talk briefly in a doctor’s room, they all have sweat on their foreheads , the hair on the back of the neck is wet. They run from ward to ward, from room to room, from conversation to conversation. In between the phone rings.
Stern-Streter made dozens of phone calls later six intensive care beds organized for the day. One was available an hour ago. You start from scratch every day, he says.
We are doing a little shell game, so to speak, postponing, postponing, postponing.
Stefan Stern-Streter
But it is still far from being enough. There are further inquiries for treatment capacities in the internal system. A fraction can be served. Stern-Straeter looks at his screen, points with the pen on a line far below: “They all need a bed” , he says. “We prioritize, juggle. Defect management.”
Shell player? The shortage of intensive care beds is managed on these lists
Credit: Dennis Pohl
Shift change in the intensive care unit. The night was like that stressful as always say the carers. On the floor between the patient rooms, the Covid and non-Covid areas are separated with barrier tape.
Call another intensive care unit. Whether you can still accept a patient:
“I can’t say right now. Really not, ”said senior physician Stefan Stern-Streter.
Nurses prepare to go into the room of a ventilated Covid-19 patient.
Credit: Dennis Pohl
Senior physician Stefan Stern-Streter receives a call in front of another patient’s room. It’s another intensive care unit, a colleague asks if Stern-Straeter could take a patient. “I can’t say right now, really not,” he says. So go on here all day . Clinics from all over Bavaria call four to five times a day and are bitten for help. The phone has never stood still for weeks, says Stern-Straeter.
We got pretty full overnight. But we have to deal with everyone who comes in.
Stefan Stern-Streter
All traffic lights are red. All capacities are occupied.
Credit: Screenshot Divi registration
An emergency exacerbates the situation
At his station, the so-called ITS 2 , eleven out of twelve beds are occupied this morning, ten of them are here because of severe Covid-19 courses. Around six in the morning a patient came with one severe knife stab injury In the emergency room. He had to be treated immediately by intensive care intubated and now in a coma .
The shift begins
Good morning and welcome to our live report from the LMU University Hospital in Munich. It snowed overnight in Munich Dr. Stefan Stern-Strasser , Senior physician on duty on my first ward that day, the anesthetic intensive care unit , leads me to his place of work. He’s already got an overview, he says. “Does not look good.”
