Omicron: Massive staff shortages in hospitals
politics
Omikron is exacerbating the already chronic shortage of staff in hospitals. In the federal state, 200 hospital beds cannot be occupied because the necessary staff is missing due to CoV infections. In the university hospital alone, 120 beds are affected – mainly on the internal ward. Procedures that are not absolutely necessary are postponed and patients are sent home.
On Thursday, 65 doctors and 260 nurses were missing in the state clinics – mainly due to CoV infections. Of course, this has an impact on hospital operations, says clinic spokesman Wolfgang Fürweger: “Corona is an internal disease. As a result, we are now very limited in these areas. For example, on Monday there was not a single internal medicine bed in the entire northern region of Salzburg.”
Elderly woman brought back to the nursing home
This situation in the internal departments also leads to major problems in the emergency rooms. There it is sometimes said: where to go with hospitalized patients? Monika Auer had her 87-year-old mother there on Monday – with serious illnesses: “A nurse has already told me that mom will probably have to sleep in the emergency room.”
The woman was then taken back to the nursing home from the hospital, her daughter says.
Priority for emergencies and acute surgeries
The clinic spokesman Exactly the strategy for the continued operation of the stations: “Yes, we have to postpone treatments that are not acute and not urgent. But emergencies must of course be financed.”
According to Fürweger, the hospital staff do their best every day. In order to ease the situation, a rapid “flattening of the omicron wave” is urgently needed, according to the hospitals.