Never before has the topic of the intensive care unit (ICU) been as present in people’s minds as it was during the corona pandemic. Thierry Fumeaux, President of the Foundation for Intensive Care Medicine, is also pleased that they are suddenly attracting so much attention. However, he still sees a lot of catching up to do. Because Switzerland was unprepared for the pandemic, he criticized the “NZZ”.
The reason: “Switzerland had a pandemic plan – but nobody could do anything with it in an emergency.” For its part, the Society for Intensive Care Medicine had already realized in January 2020 that the hospitals were facing a major problem. Nevertheless, it took numerous requests before the committee was invited by the Federal Office of Public Health (BAG) to an initial meeting. In addition, before Corona, the intensive care physicians were often not even represented in the crisis teams of the hospitals. All of this meant that you always had to organize everything under enormous pressure, he says.
feared labor shortage
According to Fumeaux, most people do not know what to expect in the intensive care unit and what responsibilities the employees there have to bear. The work in the intensive care unit also represents a high psychological burden. “The risk that someone will not leave the ICU alive is relatively high,” he says. The mortality rate is around five to ten percent.
During the pandemic, there was also the high utilization of the stations. Ideally, utilization on the IPS should be around 75 percent, says Fumeaux. For example, in the event of a serious traffic accident, there could be spikes even in normal times – but that would be over after a few days. However, if more than 80 percent of the beds are occupied for a longer period of time, this increases the burden on the staff and, accordingly, the mortality rate among the patients.
According to Fumeaux, you cannot simply increase the IPS positions. You can temporarily withdraw people who normally work in the operating room or in anesthesia – but that doesn’t go beyond 24 months. In addition, there was once the idea of simply increasing the number of IPS beds in Switzerland to 2,000. But a bed with a ventilator alone is of little use as long as there is no doctor and no nurse there, he says.
Many have left the job
Many ICU nurses have already left the job in recent months, says Fumeau. He fears that the situation will continue to deteriorate in the coming years. “We basically train too few doctors in Switzerland,” he says to the newspaper. And: The students would also hesitate to go to intensive care medicine. Because there would be a lot of night shifts and weekend services there – many boys would no longer want that. In addition, depending on the canton and hospital, intensive care medicine can also be less lucrative than other areas.
Fumeaux is a specialist in internal medicine and intensive care medicine. Until a year ago, he headed the department of internal medicine at the hospital in Nyon VD and was a member of the federal scientific Covid task force. In 2021, the Romand switched to a Basel biotechnology company. (bra)