ICU patient total back to “normal” level: 708 Covid-19 patients in intensive care

With Dutch hospitals treating fewer and fewer Covid-19 patients in intensive care after nearly three straight weeks of daily declines, occupancy in ICU has returned to a normal level. There were 708 ICU patients from the Netherlands in intensive care on Saturday, patient coordination office LCPS confirmed.

"The overall ICU occupancy of 1098 patients in the Netherlands is within normal ICU capacity again. This gives the ICU staff space to catch their breath," said Ernst Kuipers, the chair of the acute care network in the Netherlands.

Before the coronavirus pandemic began, the Netherlands had about 1,150 spaces in its intensive care units across the country. Since then, the ICU capacity was scaled up to accommodate the increase in patients caused by the global health crisis.

Over the past week, 105 patients with Covid-19 were discharged from the hospital after being treated in ICU, and 160 were transferred to other departments in the hospital. Another 35 died over the past week, according to statistics from intensive care nonprofit NICE.

A total of 714 patients in ICU with the coronavirus disease died from the illness since the pandemic began, while 684 have been discharged and 654 were transferred out of the ICU. A total of 2,815 patients from the Netherlands with Covid-19 have been treated in hospitals.

On Saturday, Dutch hospitals were treating 680 patients for Covid-19, and 418 for issues unrelated to coronavirus. Another 28 Covid-19 patients from the Netherlands are being treated in Germany.

"The number of non-COVID patients in intensive care has decreased slightly, which is in line with the lower number of surgeries that will take place over the weekend," Kuipers said.