The low number of IC beds in Limburg hospitals largely explains the worrying statistics about corona treatment in the Euregion. That is what IC head Iwan van der Horst says. Research has shown that significantly fewer corona patients died in the ICU in Belgium than in the Netherlands and Germany.
The research was conducted during the first corona wave in 2020 at hospitals in Genk, Hasselt, Liège, Aachen and Maastricht. A comparison of the 550 patients showed that in the Netherlands and Germany more than 40 percent of the patients died, while in Belgium this was only 22 percent. “We saw that the patients who went to the ICU in Belgium really differed from the Netherlands and Germany. They were less ill,” says Iwan van der Horst, IC head in Maastricht and who will be the formal successor of Diederik Gommers as head of all Dutch hospitals next week. intensivists.
IC capacity
Van der Horst explains the differences with Belgium mainly by the fact that Belgian patients were admitted to the ICU more quickly. While patients in Maastricht were often still in ‘medium care’, in Belgium they had already moved on to the ‘intensive care’ department. This not only resulted in patients dying less quickly, it also meant that corona patients were in the ICU for ten days in Belgium, and fourteen in the Netherlands. “Belgium has more than twice as many IC beds than the Netherlands,” explains Van der Horst. “As a result, the criteria for when you call the care intensive care or not. In Germany and the Netherlands, the percentage of people in the ICU who were ventilated with a machine or tube was very high. In Belgium it was considerably lower. treated in intensive care during the first wave.”
Long term care
The Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport is currently working on a vision of how to deal with the virus in the longer term. According to Van der Horst, conclusions can be drawn from the report that are relevant to that vision of the future. “That is the reason we did this research. If there are differences, you want to learn from them. You should be very honest. Is the wider capacity in Belgium where people are admitted to the ICU earlier, is that something we should consider the future? I think the IC capacity in the Netherlands should be expanded. That’s what we are doing. We are now going from 950 beds to 1150 beds. That is already a nice percentage. Perhaps it will become one of my roles as new chairman to see if that is enough, or if we need to grow even further.”
IC capacity in the Netherlands must be increased, concludes new IC head Iwan van der Horst, successor to Diederik Gommers. Euregio research provides a clear picture: More beds, more training and IC teams with greater diversity. Scaling up 20% and more if necessary #coronadebate pic.twitter.com/MvgxwNUq5d
— Maurice de Heus (@MauriceDeHeus) February 2, 2022
Education
The main argument for not increasing the number of IC beds over the past two years has been the lack of staff. As a result, the hospitals had to search for more intensive care places. Van der Horst sees perspective there. “More than 50 students have already started here in Maastricht. The first ones graduated two months ago. So we already have IC nurses who have been trained during the covid period. 20 more will graduate next year.
If you translate that to the whole of the Netherlands, you know that it will certainly work if everyone can train a large number of ICU nurses. And we should look at the way we’re going to work in the IC. That is also a look to the future. Then you can see it, for example, that not only ICU doctors and ICU nurses work, but that you expand the team with other healthcare providers. The team in the entire composition will then be able to do that.”