Brabant hospitals ask staff to remain on duty after positive Covid test

Hospitals in Noord-Brabant are asking employees who tested positive for Covid-19 to come in to work. They're trying to prevent surgeries and other treatments from having to be postponed due to staff shortages, Bart Berden of the province's acute care consultation (ROAZ) said to Omroep Brabant.

Many hundreds of hospital employees have tested positive for Covid-19 since Carnival, Berden said. In some departments, absenteeism is approaching 20 percent. "We see an enormous amount of coronavirus infections, without people having many symptoms. It now looks more like the flu than the coronavirus as we knew it two years ago. To ensure that we as hospitals can continue to provide good care, we are now also going to approach it more like the flu," he said.

Hospitals are only asking people who are indispensable and work in critical departments to stay on duty despite having the coronavirus. Critical departments include the emergency room, intensive care, and operating rooms. Berden stressed that sick staff are not forced to work. And hospitals take extra measures to make sure sick employees don't infect patients and colleagues. "In this way, patient safety is not jeopardized," he said.

According to Berden, hospitals either have to ask employees with the coronavirus to work or scale down care again. "That is dramatic for the people whose surgery had previously already been canceled. The number of coronavirus patients in hospitals in Brabant is finally almost at the level that we can provide all regular care again. We don't want to take another bite out of that," he said. "The coronavirus was so special that we took extraordinary measures. But the Omicron variant is much more like the flu. And so we are now taking flu-like measures: including asking someone to work if they feel well enough."