Absenteeism in MUMC+ in Maastricht is unprecedentedly high and the peak may not have been reached yet. The catch-up care has been put ‘on hold’ for the time being.
“The situation is dire,” said Carla Abrams. The company director of one of the large departments in the university hospital has to ensure that the occupancy rate remains somewhat at an acceptable level. “That is not easy with a staff loss of 15 percent, where it is normally four percent.”
Standstill
Patients who are on a waiting list for a hospital visit will notice that, because catch-up care will come to a standstill in the coming weeks, according to Abrams. “We carry out the normal care tasks and the number of operating rooms has not yet been scaled down. However, we do not know whether the absenteeism rate will become even higher than it is now.”
Unknown
More than 600 MUMC+ employees are forced to be unable to show up at work. Not all employees have a corona infection and not all dropouts work at the bedside with patients. Office employees, who are not too sick, usually work from home. Abrams is company director of the Center for the Chronically Ill: “The dropout rate among nursing and care personnel has risen to about 150 men and women in recent days. That is unprecedentedly high.”
Empty seats
On the floor where it is normally full of employees who have lunch or have a meeting, it is remarkably quiet. Carla Abrams: “You can see from the empty seats that there are far fewer people working. It should be much busier around noon, as it is now.”
Peak
Abrams: “It is important for us that more employees do not become infected and that they have to stay at home. Fortunately, the vaccination rate is very high among the staff, so the chance that they will become very ill is small. We hope that we will be out of this in four weeks’ time.” situation. But we don’t know for sure.”