Staff shortfalls in hospitals: Intensive care physicians warn of restrictions in winter

As more and more staff in hospitals are down, intensive care physician Christian Karagiannidis warns of restrictions on winter care, the news agency dpa reports on Monday.

“Our main problem in the healthcare sector is currently the wide range of staff shortages and the associated bed closures,” said Karagiannidis, a member of the Corona Expert Council of the Federal Government.

This would affect a chronically ill system that no longer has the possibility of compensation.

Currently, several waves of infection ran through the staff at short intervals, and one fears that the flu will also join Corona. According to the physician, this leads to considerable restrictions and extremely heavy loads on the system.

However, patient advocates criticize shortcomings in the protection of really vulnerable groups.

“The situation for people who cannot protect themselves in inpatient and outpatient care for the elderly is still devastating,” said Eugen Brysch, board member of the German Foundation for Patient Protection.

The federal and state governments are not doing enough preventively on this topic. “We don’t have to do everything to fight the pandemic, we have to do the right thing.”