Contents
– I am terrified that the infectious ward will be adjacent to the geriatric ward. This is a real threat to the life and health of my patients – says the director of the Geriatric Hospital in Katowice, where some of the beds are to be intended for patients with COVID-19
- What on a scale of 33 thousand. covid beds will change seven in a hospital in Katowice? And taking these places in practice means shutting down the entire floor of the hospital completely
- Patients are people with senile dementia, dementia. Some people will not understand the command to go to bed and not leave the room because there is a pandemic and they are at risk of infection
- The hospital is equipped and organized with a view to providing geriatric services, and not treating infectious diseases
- You can find more up-to-date information on the TvoiLokony home page
Geriatric Hospital for them. Jana Pawła II in Katowice is the only specialist geriatric hospital in Poland and a showcase of Polish geriatrics. It only deals with elderly patients. He has fifty years of experience in the comprehensive diagnosis and treatment of geriatric patients.
But at the request of the Silesian Voivode, Jarosław Wieczorek, on the authority of the Minister of Health, Deputy Minister Waldemar Kraska decided that now part of the facility is to be allocated to patients infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Anna Brzeska-Mikoda, director of the hospital, is against this decision.
— I disagree with the logic of this decision. I am terrified that the infectious ward will be adjacent to the geriatric ward. This is a real threat to the life and health of my patients – he argues.
Great risk for geriatric patients
The minister’s letter is “immediately enforceable in order to protect human health and life”.
It says that from November 23, 2020, the provision of services for patients infected with SARS-CoV-19 in a hospital in Katowice is to take place “on 7 beds at the second level of hospital security”.
– I do not understand, what will change our seven in the Geriatric Hospital on the scale of 33 covid infectious diseases beds in Poland? Especially when you consider the risks it brings for my patients. In addition, taking these seven places from them means in practice the complete shutdown of the entire floor of the hospital, where there are many more beds, as many as 20 – explains the director of the facility.
However, in order to ensure even minimum safety conditions, it will be necessary to turn off some of the facility.
– After all, it is difficult to imagine that infected patients should be separated from the geriatric ones with a screen – he adds.
They suffer from dementia, they won’t understand
Patients who go to a geriatric hospital are people struggling with many ailments associated with old age, as well as with senile dementia and dementia.
– They often wander in halls and corridors. Some people need to be fed because they are dependent. And also to rewind, wash. It is impossible, as if the authorities wanted to, to limit contact with elderly people to basic medical activities. It is impossible. You just have to be with them constantly, otherwise they fall into episodes of delirium and even aggression – emphasizes the head of the facility.
And he says that some will not understand the command to go to bed and not leave the room because they are at risk.
However, the specificity of geriatric patients is not the only concern. The hospital is equipped and organized for the provision of geriatric services, but not for the treatment of infectious diseases.
– We do not use oxygen therapy, we do not have a central oxygen installation. Moreover, we do not even use oxygen cylinders larger than 5 liters. And in the treatment of patients with COVID-19, oxygen therapy is a prerequisite. And the required supply for these seven beds is a minimum of 25 cylinders, 40 liters each! Only then is it possible to talk about any treatment at all, she says embittered.
See also: 10 deaths due to COVID-19 in Poland. What do we know about the death toll of the pandemic?
The infrastructure of the hospital does not live up to expectations
There are no intensive care stations, i.e. respirators, or a team of anesthesiologists in the hospital in Katowice. This means that in the event of a sick person’s health deteriorating, it will be necessary to transport them to a facility with appropriate facilities.
– Infrastructure shortages cannot be filled overnight. The waiting time, even for small elements of the necessary infrastructure, such as reducers, is a minimum of two weeks – Brzeska-Mikoda enumerates.
On a daily basis, the hospital at ul. Morawa 31 has 44 places for elderly patients. It is the last and only one of this specialty in the entire Silesian region.
– Geriatric wards, which operated in other multidisciplinary hospitals, were closed since the first wave of the epidemic as too exposed to the spread of the virus, or transformed into “covid” – the director analyzes. – Therefore, the Hospital of Jana Pawła II is the only place where sick elderly people can count on medical care.
The staff won’t split in two
Another issue that outrages hospital management is the question of staff.
– If these seven beds were handed over to COVID-19 patients, some employees would have to combine tasks between the geriatric and covid wards, because the facility does not have enough staff to organize a separate team for coronavirus patients. This would have a negative impact on the availability of geriatric services. Staff sharing is possible in the case of having special locks for putting on and removing personal protective equipment. In our country, these would be symbolic zones, because there is nothing to distinguish them from the infrastructural point of view. The risk of transferring the infection to the most vulnerable patients, i.e. our seniors, would be very high – adds the head of the hospital.
So much is said about the protection of seniors
At the site of the Geriatric Hospital of John Paul II, older patients wait an average of nine months.
Brzeska-Mikoda: – Now the line will be much longer. If so far we have treated about 140-150 patients monthly, our possibilities in this regard will be limited by half. Converting our hospital into a semi-covid hospital is like putting your hand in hot oil, so the likelihood that we will burn is more than certain. And yet so much is said about protecting seniors in times of a pandemic, special hours of trading in shops are organized for them, calls for them to stay at home and to keep social distance. This is a group that is particularly vulnerable to coronavirus infection and is particularly ill – limiting their access to treatment in as safe conditions as possible is simply contrary to the strategy to fight COVID-19.
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