Poland threatened with collapse in health service

The dynamics of the increase in new cases of Covid-19 is so great that it threatens the efficiency of the health care system. On Monday morning, the Ministry of Health announced 15,578 new cases of coronavirus (the previous day there were 17,100) and another 92 deaths. In total, over 395,500 people in Poland have contracted Covid-19 so far, while almost 5,900 died.

“The shortage of beds and human resources are currently two bottlenecks in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic,” Maria Libura, expert of the Analysis Center of the Jagiellonian Club and Collegium Medicum at UWM in Olsztyn, vice-president of the Polish Medical Communication Society, said.

The new strategy announced by the Ministry of Health is a signal that the situation in Poland is already very serious and we are currently fighting to prevent the collapse of the health service from occurring in the spring of southern European countries. An increasing problem is also the treatment of patients with other urgent medical needs, e.g. oncological or cardiological patients for whom there are no places in hospitals or who refrain from visiting specialists.

According to the data of the Ministry of Health, Covid-19 patients occupy 17,223 hospital beds out of 24,800 prepared places. Still, 1,453 ventilators are occupied, while 453 devices remain available. However, in some regions of the country, e.g. in Podlasie, there are only a few of them.

The new strategy is to introduce an automatic quarantine for co-homeowners of people with a positive SARS-CoV-2 test result. This means that they will no longer have to wait for a phone call and information from the Department of Health. The Minister of Health also announced the creation of new temporary hospitals and an increase in the number of places in isolators. Another change is antigen tests, which in symptomatic patients will be the same basis for determining coronavirus as PCR tests.

“This is a good move, actually necessary, due to the avalanche of new infections, it will help to clear, for example, admitting patients in hospitals. On the other hand, it also illustrates the seriousness of the situation in which we found ourselves and the scale of the pandemic in Poland,” Maria Libura, added.

(Newseria)