Since yesterday, Friday, retail and gastronomy have reopened in Upper Austria after the lockdown. However, there can be no talk of normality, the seven-day incidence in Upper Austria is around 300, and the enormously contagious Omikron variant is on the rise worldwide. It is feared that the corona numbers will also rise sharply again in Austria in the coming weeks, a fifth wave will hardly be preventable.
In the corona wards of the hospitals, however, there is no noticeable – at least brief – relaxation. As of Friday morning, 24 people were treated in the pandemic wards in the Rieder Spital, four of them in the intensive care unit. The fourth wave hit the anesthesia and intensive care unit with a lot of force, at times more than 50 people had to be treated in the corona pandemic wards.
“Excellent working atmosphere”
“In the past few weeks we had to treat nine or ten corona intensive care patients. These people need a lot of care, the therapy and treatment is complex, working in the stuffy protective gear is physically very strenuous, we are all working on the attack. If we had not such an excellent working atmosphere, the performance of the entire team would be impossible, “says Andreas Hartjes, senior physician in anesthesia, intensive care and palliative medicine, during an appointment with the OÖN in a large conference room.
The 41-year-old from Wildenau, who has been working at the Ried Hospital since 2006, has to make calls again and again, and a seriously ill middle-aged corona patient was brought to the hospital. He has to be taken straight to the intensive care unit, it’s critical. “In the fourth wave we see more and more frequently that the sick only come to us when it is in some cases almost too late.”
Patients keep getting younger
“The average age in our pandemic ward was around 65 in the previous waves, now the patients are significantly younger. Many are between 50 and 60, and we unfortunately had to treat even younger patients under 40 with severe lung failure. This also increases average length of stay because, as tough as that sounds, younger people have more reserves to fight for survival, “says Hartjes.
“The process of waking up corona patients can take several weeks, often accompanied by shortness of breath and pain, which can be reduced with medication as much as possible. Nobody leaves the intensive care unit healthy, the death rate of corona intensive care patients is around 30 percent , unfortunately almost all of them have not been vaccinated, “says Hartjes. Of the 30 intensive care patients in the third wave, only three people who had serious previous illnesses were vaccinated. After nearly two years of pandemic, hospital workers are tired and the fifth wave seems only a matter of time. “There are so many operations that we would have to catch up on. Only tumor and emergency operations can currently be carried out. It is frustrating because this bottleneck could be avoided with a much higher vaccination rate,” says Hartjes.
When it’s too late for the trick
When he hears that some doctors take to the streets against the vaccination or even prescribe the worming drug ivermectin, he is stunned.
“This is completely insane. There is only one way to minimize the likelihood of severe disease courses: the vaccination. We have already had enough corona patients who, unfortunately, asked if we would ask them shortly before we unfortunately had to put them into artificial deep sleep Please could vaccinate now. Then unfortunately we can only answer that it is now too late. When close relatives see the enormous extent of the disease on site, it falls like scales from many of the eyes Seriously ill corona patients are confronted directly, hardly anyone doubts the severity of this virus “, says the senior doctor from his everyday work.
Before intubation, most patients are no longer able to even have a short phone call with relatives. “Many can no longer do it. In this state one is only busy getting some air. The patients know that there is a danger to their lives, but they do not know whether they will ever wake up from deep sleep again. It is tragic and sad”, says the 41-year-old senior physician.
There is great respect for the Omikron variant. Hartjes expects a significant increase in the number of cases in January. “Then it could become necessary again for us to increasingly have to cancel operations. Interventions that have been postponed in the last few weeks cannot then be made up because the staff is needed again to treat corona patients. Unfortunately, the prospects are currently poor”, says Hartjes. The good news is that people who have been vaccinated three times will continue to have good protection against serious disease. “It is important to get the booster vaccination quickly. This is the only way to slow down a new wave of corona to some extent.”
“Let’s take it personally”
At the end of October, the headlines were made by a Rieder MFG politician who described the medical staff as criminals in a Facebook post. You take something like that personally. Hartjes: “We are defending ourselves against it with all legal means.”
When asked how he feels about compulsory vaccination, Hartjes replies: “I am an absolute advocate, unfortunately the compulsory vaccination comes far too late, it should have been introduced in the summer. The freedom of an individual ends when the community thereby stops Damage is coming. It is selfish not to get vaccinated. “
The Innviertler has no sympathy for the anti-vaccination demonstrations or for certain political statements. “These are people catchers who deliberately deny the effects of this serious illness in order to make political change. Some people deliberately lie, democracy really has to endure a lot here. The demonstrators claim to represent the opinion of the people, but in truth it is a small, noisy minority that by no means represents the people. “
Source: Nachrichten
