The Head of the ICU at the UMCG has warned that patients may have to be transferred to other Dutch hospitals to make space
The Intensive Care departments, used by Coronavirus patients are becoming full, says Peter van der Voort, Head of the ICU of the UMCG. There is a chance that Groninger patients will soon have to be moved to other regions, he says. As reported by the GIC.
Groningen has previously taken in Coronavirus patients from other regions, for example Noord-Brabant and Rotterdam. The National Center for Patient Distribution (LCPS) has calculated that the Northern Netherlands should account for 10.5 percent of the total number of Coronavirus patients in a Dutch ICU. If a region exceeds this, patients will be transferred to another region by the LCPS.
According to the UMCG, half of the IC beds in the North are now occupied with northern patients, and capacity has also been expanded. No more patients are currently being admitted from other regions. Van der Voort expects that the number of northern patients will increase in the near future: the number of infections may be lower in the North than in the rest of the country, but the average age is often higher. As a result, the number of IC patients is relatively high.
The UMCG has already scaled down regular care. If the numbers continue to develop like this, then more normal care may need to be scaled down.
