No critical patients to be left without proper care, assures ICU head
The head of Greece’s Intensive Care Society sought to reassure the public on Friday that there is no risk of critical coronavirus patients being left without the care they need or endangering other patients, despite the pressure on public hospitals from the new surge in Covid-19 cases.
“A drive is under way to create more beds and convert other units into Covid-19 intensive care wards so that everyone who needs a bed will have one,” Anastasia Kotanidou said in comments to the Athens-Macedonian News Agency.
The Athens Medical School professor said that one of the ways increasing capacity is being accomplished is by converting beds in specialized ICUs – such as those reserved for patients with heart problems or neurological disorders – into units that can be used to treat Covid-19. She explained that these beds would be isolated from others and that patients with the novel coronavirus would not be treated and cared for by the same doctors and nurses looking after other patients.
Kotanidou described the situation at the country’s hospitals as “manageable for the time being,” but added that the situation is harder in Attica, which has accounted for the lion’s share of new cases in recent weeks, that in other parts of the country.
She said that the system will come under serious pressure if the daily number of new infections starts rising even further, reaching the 500 mark for at least three days. “That is when we’ll really start worrying,” said Kotanidou.
