Large numbers of operations are being cancelled to help ease pressure on hospitals
Translated by Thomas Ansell
Pressure on Intensive Care Units in the Northern Netherlands due to the Coronavirus is now so intense that large numbers of operations are being cancelled, and acute care ‘cannot be guaranteed’ in the coming week, reports the Omrop Fryslân. The news has come via the Intensive Care co-ordinator for the North, Peter van der Voort, who says that “the situation is extremely serious”.
“All IC’s are either full, or have at the most one bed available for emergencies”, says Van der Voort, “we have about 70 percent of patients from the North, with about 30 percent patients from other regions.”
Van der Voort works at the Intensive Care Unit at the UMCG in Groningen: “we are cancelling all ‘class three’ operations. That means that planned operations for people with, for example, esophageal cancer, will be postponed.”
“We can now just about continue to offer acute care, but we’re reaching the boundary there, too. It’s possible that we might fail in offering full care then in the coming week.” Van der Voort was scathing regarding the recent Coronavirus regulation changes: “those came really too soon”, he says.
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