A hospital in Belgium has decided to no longer prioritize patients Covid in intensive care. An unpopular choice that arises from the need to bring the hospitalization situation back to normal pre-Covid. The routine of hospitals has been upset all over the world by the coronavirus pandemic and, for the past 2 years, wards and intensive care have been used as a priority by the infected. This has led to an important slowdown in the treatment of other diseases and, now, in Belgium there is a desire to take back the health situation that is independent of Covid.
For this reason, a Belgian hospital has decided to suspend the emergency procedures included in the first pandemic period. “Postponing normal care to keep the beds free for Covid patients no longer seems possible to me“, declared the head physician without half measures Frank Vermassen, to the local newspaper Vrt It. What the Belgian doctor said is a truth common to many countries, including Italy, in which many serious, chronic and oncological patients above all, for almost two years have been forced to postpone and postpone treatment and check-ups because hospitals are concentrated. in the battle against the coronavirus. But if at the beginning it was a necessity, now from Belgium they have decided that it is no longer useful to continue with this intervention strategy, precisely because it is contributing to aggravate the clinical picture of non-Covid patients who are unable to receive assistance. health they need.
Frank Vermassen’s is a general discourse that leads to a deep and comprehensive reflection of the entire health system that has been revolving around Covid for almost a year. However, the head physician in his interview wanted to emphasize the fact that most Covid patients who need hospital care and intensive care are subject not vaccinated. Belgium, like much of Europe, is experiencing a new increase and “the increase in cases also coincides with a time of shortage of personnel to carry out all the services requested. So we can no longer give Covid patients a preferential regime. Those who arrive in intensive care are not vaccinated“.
Obviously, Frank Vermassen was keen to specify that any Covid patient who enters his hospital will be entitled to treatment, whether vaccinated or not, but like other subjects who need medical intervention, without priority, “because these beds are taken away from other sick people who have right in the same way to be assisted“.