The effects of the pandemic are also felt by the youngest: children who have to undergo heart surgery. Such interventions are only carried out in Austria in the Linz Kepler University Hospital (KUK) and in the Vienna General Hospital. In Linz there have already been 20 postponements since the fourth wave of corona, reported the director of the Pediatric Cardiology Clinic, Gerald Tulzer.
“Some interventions had to be postponed by one to two days, others by two to three weeks or months,” said Tulzer. These are elective interventions, these children would have been given the appointment months in advance. However, he emphasized: “No critically ill heart child had to wait or go without his surgery.” Nursing staff will be withdrawn due to Corona These treatments would definitely be carried out. The postponements come because more and more nursing staff are being withdrawn for the complex treatment of corona intensive care patients. Fewer organ screenings during pregnancy Currently around eight to nine children – including postoperatively – are being cared for in the intensive care unit and 14 to 15 in the normal ward of cardiology. One or two children with critical heart defects are given birth every week at the KUK, as far as possible naturally, said Tulzer. It becomes noticeable that in the corona situation, apparently fewer pregnant women have organ screenings done, because there are “more unknown, critical newborns who were not prenatally recorded,” said Tulzer.
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