The rapid increase in covid patients in Sweden is now a cause for concern in several hospitals’ intensive care units. In Stockholm and Gothenburg, among other places, the heads of operations have this week testified to a very strained situation.
Lars Magnus Andersson is chief physician and operations manager for Infection at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg.
– This increase, there were probably many of us who were not prepared for it. But we have reached so many patients that we see an impact on other care. Now I know best how it is in Gothenburg and here it is a clear impact on operations, just like last spring. But it also affects other care, reception visits and so on.
The increased number of infected thus now also affects other care, says Lars Magnus Andersson to the P1 program Good Morning World. This is despite the fact that now, unlike last spring, they had time to prepare.
– So far, we are following a kind of plan we made this spring, and we have not reached the ceiling in that plan yet. In this way, it feels more controlled than last spring, but it is clearly a real impact, he said.
The fact that healthcare staff work hard is one of the major problems for healthcare, and Lars Magnus Andersson, who is responsible for infection care at Sahlgrenska and also chairman of the infection control doctors’ association, would like to see a system with more relief.
Not least the assistant nurses and nurses who spend many hours in protective equipment, along with anxious patients who have difficulty breathing.
– In addition to being physically stressful, it is also psychologically stressful, of course. So it would have been best if we had found a system so that you rotate, so that the same people do not work in these environments all winter and until May. We have not found a system there yet, but we will probably have to do it, says Lars-Magnus Andersson.
Source: ICELAND NEWS