The Big Wave of Corona Cases Will Hit German Hospitals in 10 to 14 Days
Disinfectants are running low at his medical facility, too. The contract supplier is refusing to increase allocations and is instead supplying pharmacies because they’re willing to pay more. So, the hospital has instead begun its own “in-house production.” It purchased 2,000 liters of rubbing alcohol from an industrial painter in Heinsberg and, through personal contacts, from the German meat processing company Tönnies. “We are creating a catastrophe pharmacy of a kind I have never experienced in 35 years,” says Jörg Gildehaus, the hospital’s chief pharmacist.
Hospitals are finding it increasingly difficult to protect their own employees from infection, and the nationwide infection rate among medical staff is rising. München Klinik clinic Managing Director Fischer is upset that it took politicians and the government so long to react to the crisis. “You could see early on that there was a shortage of materials,” he says, critically. “At the moment, it doesn’t really matter how much they cost. We have to get them. But once this crisis passes, we are all going to have to think about how to deal with the companies that are driving up prices now. This is a question of the health of other humans and the common good.”
The district administrator in Heinsberg, the district in Germany that has been hardest-hit by the coronavirus, is also upset about the lack of respirator masks and protective suits at the three hospitals in his district. “This is our Achilles’ heel,” Stephan Pusch says by phone. He describes the coronavirus as a “testament to the inadequacy of the health-care system.”
The Tests
Meanwhile, the situation with the coronavirus tests is extremely confusing. In many public health departments, workers’ nerves are frayed. They can’t keep up with the rising number of infected people, or with the search for those they came into contact with. “We have a significant delay in compiling infection figures,” says Ute Teichert, the head of the Federal Association of Physicians of German Public Health Departments.
She says that officials in state public health departments are already calling for help. Several authorities, she says, have employees working multiple shifts, and some employees are even working overnight. “We desperately need staff reinforcements,” argues Teichert.
Over the years, staffing at public health departments has been hollowed out. In the past 20 years, the number of staff doctor positions in those departments has been reduced by a third. Teichert claims that they are short at least 1,000 employees, and that it is almost impossible to find new ones. Physicians working at public health departments earn 1,000 to 1,500 euros less per month there than they would at a hospital.
This makes it impossible to monitor many of those infected with the virus, a decisive factor in the course this epidemic will take. Ambulatory areas for potential coronavirus patients have been set up in several hospitals to allow staff to carry out tests. Most are separated from normal hospital operations, and located in a different building. At some, however, absurdly long lines form in front of them, in which potentially infected people stand at close proximity to one another. This was the case this past Monday at Dresden’s University Hospital, where more than 500 people stood in line for a test.
Many people prefer to get help from their family doctor or other physicians with their own practices, putting the continuing operation of those offices at risk. The Berlin Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KV Berlin) warned this week of a “collapse of ambulatory care” in the German capital. Contrary to the federal government’s promises, Berlin’s more than 6,500 doctor’s offices were not equipped with respiratory masks and protective clothing by the middle of this week. An announcement was made on Thursday that 10 million masks and further equipment would be available shortly and distributed under police protection.