Coronary pandemic now poses challenges in a number of areas due to employee sick leave.
In addition to coronavirus patients, hospital operations are threatened by staff shortages as workers become ill and the number of patients increases at the same time.
On Monday, Helsinki opened a new unit for coronary patients, the Herttoniemi Reserve Hospital. There were 11 coronary patients in the hospital on Monday, but more patients will be admitted as new staff are admitted to the hospital. There are 50 hospital beds in the emergency hospital.
There were a total of 118 coronary patients in Helsinki hospitals on Tuesday morning. There were 86 patients on Friday.
“The hospital workload has grown rapidly. The number of patients has corresponded to the scenarios that were introduced when the omicron variant became available, ”says the director of hospitals in the city of Helsinki. Laura Pikkarainen.
Herttoniemi Employees from other city social services and units in the Helsinki and Uusimaa Hospital District (Hus) have been transferred to the hospital. The City of Helsinki announced on Monday that the transfer of personnel to corona services will cause a shortage of employees, and for this reason unhurried sote services will be reduced.
This means, among other things, that reception hours will be reduced in health centers and dental care, that school and student health care inspections will not be carried out and that home care client visits will have to be postponed.
Espoo announced on Tuesday that staff from Espoo Hospital will be transferred from health centers and infection surveillance due to a worsening pandemic and increased sick leave.
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The transfer of personnel to corona services causes a shortage of workers, and for this reason non-urgent SOTE services will be reduced.
Size Ten per cent of Helsinki’s social security personnel are currently absent due to the corona epidemic – either themselves ill or exposed.
“Like all other Helsinki residents, SOTE personnel suffer from coronary heart disease,” says Pikkarainen.
According to Pikkarainen, the ten per cent sickness absence rate is “really big”. Influenza seasons, for example, have never caused a similar number of illnesses.
According to Pikkarainen, the situation cannot yet be described as critical but serious.
“However, emergency health care can be implemented. If that cannot be done, the situation will become critical. ”
If the number of staff absenteeism were to rise to 20%, the situation would be critical.
“Then we would no longer keep up with the situation,” says Pikkarainen.
Herttoniemi in addition to the emergency hospital, coronary patients are treated at Laakso Hospital, where 36 per cent of the patients are treated for coronary heart disease.
According to Pikkarainen, patients with corona can get to hospital places quickly, but other patients are queuing up at the city’s hospitals. Patients are waiting for special care, that is, on the side of Hus hospitals.
The goal is for the patient to have access to primary care from specialist care in three working days, but in the current congested situation, the transfer has had to wait at worst for two weeks.
Hospital congestion is currently forming a spiral: specialist care departments become congested when they are not accessible from the city’s hospitals. This, in turn, congestes emergency services when congested places in specialist care are not reached quickly enough.
In Hus hospitals, hospital beds have had to be closed due to staff shortages. In the city’s hospitals, places have been closed by two per cent, or a good ten places.
Coronary patients are typically in the hospital for about two weeks. According to Pikkarainen, however, the good news is that the time spent in hospital has clearly shortened with vaccinations.
“There were an average of three weeks in the hospital before the vaccinations.”
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If the number of staff absenteeism were to rise to 20%, the situation would be critical.
Decision The establishment of the emergency hospital in Herttoniemi was already done at the beginning of the pandemic, but the hospital premises were put together during the weekend.
“Cleaning was still going on on Sunday night. I was surprised at how hospital-like it was already here on Monday morning, ”says the teacher Sari Rooswho was setting up a hospital over the weekend.
According to Roos, the sote staff of the City of Helsinki is “at the extreme limits”.
“A lot of people do a lot of overtime. Everyone who is able and willing to nail has been recruited as vaccinators in addition to their normal job. ”
Roos himself has worked throughout the pandemic on various tasks related to the corona epidemic. Over the past couple of weeks, the workload has been exceptional, he said.
“I’ve never done more work in my life than I do now, and I wouldn’t be able to do more.”
Roos hopes that every citizen will now be involved in helping with health care.
“That would take vaccines, avoid unnecessary contact and wear a mask.”
Husin Director of Security and Preparedness Aaro Toivonen is very concerned about the situation.
“Corona patients are just one group of patients, but here we are talking about all other patient care and support services, such as pharmacies and institutional care. The whole machinery has to run,” says Toivonen.
In Hus, the worsening staff shortage has been prepared for, among other things, by recruiting more labor from students in the field and retirees.
It has also been explored how the resources of private health care could be utilized and whether labor could be obtained from the NGO sector. In addition, possible official assistance from the Defense Forces has been discussed.
“It must be said honestly that this does not have to get any more difficult without being in a really difficult situation and we have to consider introducing the powers of the Emergency Preparedness Act,” says Toivonen.
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“I’ve never done more work in my life than I do now, and I wouldn’t be able to do more.”
Challenges adding to the current situation is the need for society to be prepared to resort to possible other, sudden threats as well.
“I have emphasized that we must also be prepared for a major accident, a chain crash or other everyday disruption. Nowhere is it promised that anything else could happen during a pandemic. ”
The Hus Situation Center, which started operations in December, may in the future become one of the key tools for securing healthcare operations.
Spoiled the corona situation is reflected not only in health care, but also in public transport in the Helsinki metropolitan area. HSL Communications Manager Sari Kotikangas says that due to staff illnesses, services have had to be canceled in bus, rail, metro and tram services.
The highest number of cancellations has been in bus traffic.
“Coronary heart disease has increased on the driver’s side. Currently, the number of our canceled departures has been one percent per day, about two hundred departures,” says Kotikangas.
The number is not very large so far, as according to Kotikangas, there are about 20,000 departures a day. The effects on the movement of an individual passenger can still be considerable.
“When an individual driver is absent and cannot be replaced and if a bad lottery occurs, both the outward and return journeys on his or her own route may be missed.”
There has also been some shortage of drivers and non-driving departures in metro, rail and tram traffic.
According to Kotikangas, weekend timetables will be introduced in tram and metro traffic if the shortage of drivers worsens. Bus services have already been reduced, for example, on trunk lines, which are usually very frequent.
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