Hospitals struggle with 4th wave of Covid pandemic

The COVID-19 epidemic remains on an upward trend in Romania

Daniela Budu, 30.09.2021, 14:00

Romanian hospitals are struggling with
the growing number of severe Covid 19 cases. The 4th wave of the
epidemic started over a month ago, but over the past 2 weeks the number of
daily cases has been skyrocketing.

The number of patients in hospitals is increasing at an alarming rate,
and the battle for a place in intensive care is resumed. Physicians say that
half of the current SARS-CoV-2 patients are much younger than with previous variants,
and they come to hospitals much later when the disease is already too difficult
to fight.

According to the doctors, hospitals’ intensive care units are the first
to fill, followed by the ones in the regular wards, which is an unprecedented
situation. At present, Romania has little over 1,300 beds in intensive care for
COVID-19, most of them already filled. In order to cope with the inflow of
patients, hospitals are reorganising and are reassigning the beds reserved for
non-Covid patients.

In Arad, for instance, County Hospital manager Florina Ionescu says ICU
places available in other wards will be reassigned to COVID patients:

Florina Ionescu If all ICU places are filled in our COVID unit, we have the
option of extending the unit by another 20 beds from the Paediatrics Unit, which
is in the same building as the infectious disease unit. These beds are equipped
with oxygen breathing equipment which has been recently upgraded and checked.

The COVID 19 pandemic has a devastating impact on those who have not got
the disease, but are suffering from other serious conditions and are not going to
hospital for fear of getting infected. Hundreds of towns and villages are now
reporting infection rates of over 3 per thousand, and scores of them, including
the capital Bucharest, see infection rates of over 6 per thousand.

According to official statistics, Romania has among the largest numbers
of infections and fatalities in the EU.PM Florin Cîţu is
confident that the healthcare system will be able to handle this 4th
wave of the pandemic, and says the authorities intend to turn several
hospitals, including in Bucharest, into exclusively COVID units.

There are
solutions that we will be using, but at the same time there is no doubt that we
also need long-term solutions, and this means investments, Florin Cîţu said
recently. In Wednesday’s government meeting, the Cabinet decided that the
Health Ministry will receive some 77 million euros to buy the medicines
required for treating COVID-19 patients. Another 14 million euros will be spent
to improve ICU standards. (tr. A.M. Popescu)