Coronavirus Hospitals are now canceling surgeries and follow-up visits to treat coronary patients – in Päijät-Häme last week was particularly difficult

Hospitals all over Finland are moving surgeries and urgent care so that there are enough staff to hospitalize coronavirus patients.

The list of patients includes, for example, orthopedic, urological and gynecological surgeries and outpatient appointments, hospitals are informed about HS.

The number of coronary patients requiring hospitalization has increased over the fall. According to data from Monday, there were 218 patients with coronary heart disease in hospital, which corresponds to the situation in April 2021.

HS asked five hospitals how the load is reflected in practice.

In addition to the coronavirus, hospitals are preparing for an influenza season and a more severe rs virus epidemic that has already burdened pediatric wards in Sweden.

Read more: HS interest rate review: The need for hospital care increased over the weekend

Päijät-Häme at the central hospital in Lahti last week was exceptionally difficult. The hospital had a record number of coronary patients, one ward, or just under 20.

“What is positive now is that the workload has not increased in the last week,” says the chief medical officer. Tuomo Nieminen.

In Päijät-Häme, about a hundred employees are now caught working on the coronavirus. Last week, ten nurses were transferred from outpatient clinics to coronary patients.

Orthopedic and urological surgeries have been postponed and control periods canceled at outpatient clinics for lung disease, dermatology and cardiology, for example.

Nieminen describes the epidemic situation as a pendulum movement, where Päijät-Häme has moved at a different pace with the rest of Finland.

“Our situation started to deteriorate earlier than in many other areas in Finland.”

Seinäjoki the number of coronary patients in the central hospital has increased sharply, says the chief physician of infectious diseases Elina Kärnä.

The hospital had 11 coronary patients on Monday, a small proportion of whom also needed intensive care. The figure is the highest in Seinäjoki during the entire Korona period.

“The situation materialized over the weekend,” says Kärnä.

“About 30 percent of operating theaters have had to close, and in some patients, unhurried treatment may be delayed. Caregivers have had to be transferred to the laborious and heavy care of coronary patients. ”

Kärnä believes that the situation in the region is affected by the country’s lowest vaccination coverage. In Southern Ostrobothnia, 70.8 per cent of the population has received at least one dose.

Most of those in the hospital are unvaccinated both in Seinäjoki and throughout the country.

If the situation worsens, the next step will be to reduce outpatient care in Seinäjoki. Kärnä is concerned about what more can be done to curb the epidemic in addition to encouraging vaccinations.

“The restrictions have been driven down pretty quickly. It seems that the choice of means is quite small. ”

Read more: “Korona is not such a serious thing” – HS asked why so many do not want to take a corona vaccine in Kauhajoki, where vaccine coverage is the lowest in the country

In Turku currently suffering the most from the burden of intensive care. The university hospital has five coronavirus patients in intensive care.

The hospital has already canceled a few heavy surgery procedures as they would require follow-up in the intensive care unit. These can be, for example, heart or cancer surgeries.

“The background is not just a lack of physical facilities, but even more a lack of staff,” says the hospital district chief physician. Mikko Pietilä.

In Southwest Finland, the risk of being completely unvaccinated in hospital has been found to be more than 40 times higher than that of fully vaccinated. Pietilä says he is very afraid that the situation will become more difficult and take a long time.

“We do not currently have any restrictions like this that would substantially reduce the number of new cases. After all, this is a difficult equation in that sense. ”

Now let’s drive down the same measures as in spring 2020. However, there are differences in the situations, Pietilä points out.

The corona is now better treated and vaccinations exist, but there was less medical debt at the beginning of the epidemic.

It is also more difficult to move staff because it is caught up in vaccinations, testing and infection tracking.

On the other hand In some parts of Finland, you can still do without shutting down other treatments. This has been the case, for example, in Central Finland and in the Helsinki and Uusimaa Hospital District (Hus).

However, at least not in Uusimaa is far away. The corona coordination group has outlined that the load-bearing capacity of health care will be endangered if there are more than 15 patients in intensive care in the Hus area or more than 50 in the ward.

According to Monday’s data, there were 13 intensive care patients and 40 patients in specialist care in the area.

“The situation is clearly getting worse. Personally, I think we need to take some action, ”says the Deputy Chief Infectious Disease Practitioner Eeva Ruotsalainen.

Coronavirus in addition, the carrying capacity of hospitals is threatened by the impending influenza season, the extent and timing of which are still mysterious.

In addition, the rs virus, which causes severe inflammation of the lower respiratory tract, especially in children and the elderly, has caused a particularly severe epidemic in Sweden.

“Of course, it will be reflected in Finland now that the interest rate restrictions have been effectively lifted,” Ruotsalainen estimates.

In hospitals, the influenza epidemic is more widespread, as the rs virus is specifically burdening the emergency rooms of pediatric clinics.

For example, in the Hus area, 70–115 influenza patients typically undergo intensive care or intensive care during the winter, says Ruotsalainen.

“The corona epidemic needs to be brought under control so that the flu and the rs virus do not make the carrying capacity of healthcare impossible.”