“You can say – the care worked in Upper Austria,” says Elisabeth Brautigam, medical director at the Sisters of Mercy location: This was made possible by “maximum flexibility across all locations of the religious hospital and daily adjustments to the operation plan”, and the authorities also have treatments supported, for example, when cancer patients suffering from asymptomatic Covid-19 were transported to the hospital with special transports in such a way that they did not have to interrupt their radiation therapy.
The number of cancer diagnoses also remained relatively constant over the pandemic years. In 2019, 3080 patients were diagnosed with cancer, in 2020 there were 3272 patients. Although stopping the breast cancer screening program for up to eight weeks at the beginning of the pandemic led to a 7.5 percent drop in new diagnoses, by the end of 2020 they were back to the previous year’s level. “It is not possible to say whether this delayed diagnosis means a specific disadvantage for the patients concerned, because breast cancer is not the same as breast cancer,” says Ansgar Weltermann, head of the Upper Austria Tumor Center. In the case of other types of cancer, there was no discernible difference either in new diagnoses or in survival rates.
Because the psychological care of relatives also plays an important role, advice was switched to telephone and telemedicine, and self-help groups were also switched to online meetings. A recipe for success for the groom: “It was very well received.”
Source: Nachrichten
