More hospitals closing Covid wards as influx of patients decreases
Twenty hospitals were able to close their Covid-19 wards in recent days thanks to the declining admissions of new coronavirus patients. A total of 25 Covid-19 departments were discontinued, broadcaster NOS reported on Sunday after contacting representatives of 51 hospitals in the Netherlands.
UMC Utrecht was one of the hospitals that recently discharged their last Covid-19 patient from a special unit. "Over the past eight months, of course, we have been able to provide relatively little regular care," hospital’s capacity manager Remco van Lunteren said.
"That means that the waiting lists have increased and that we have to get rid of backlogs. That is on top of the regular supply that we normally already have. So the next challenge is coming."
The chair of the Dutch Association for Intensive Care, Diederik Gommers, said on Sunday that the rapid drop in ICU numbers was mostly due to the faster vaccination of high-risk groups. Gommers works with patients at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam.
"Yes, I am walking into a closed Covid ward today. We were able to close this additional ward this week because the decline has started," he wrote on Instagram.
"You also have made an important contribution to the eradication of the virus (achieving the herd immunity rate). We are almost there!" he added.
In hospitals without a separate ward for Covid-19 admissions, the number of available beds for these patients was also being scaled down, NOS reported.
On Sunday, there were 1,327 Covid-19 patients in hospital care, a net decrease of 25 compared to Saturday. That marked the twelfth consecutive day the hospital total fell, with the figure now 23 percent lower than it was a week ago.
