Such a facility could allow the other hospitals to focus on the other patients again which have indeed been put on the backburner for the past weeks.
Thanks to its service for infectious diseases, the CHL was the first hospital to deal with cases of Covid-19. However, due to the rapid spread of the virus, the other hospitals had to adapt as well. According to the director of the CHL, Dr Romain Nati, the idea of a centralised Covid-19 hospital is far from reality: "You should know that there are no Covid-negative-hospitals and also no Covid-negative-medical-practices. The virus has spread to all parts of society. We know that some people are asymptomatic or presymptomatic. And in all locations where patients are admitted you have to take measures".
According to the director of the CHL, every hospital would therefore still require a Covid and a non-Covid department and follow the sanitary measures which do require a lot of personnel. Meanwhile, medical professionals are criticising the separated work flows in hospitals. With extremely limited possibility for what was previously considered everyday treatment. Even now entire operating rooms are unavailable because of this decision.
According to the vice president of the association of doctors and dentists (AMMD), Dr Philippe Wilmes, it is also in the interest of the patient to find a way to limit the two hospital departments to the emergency room: "We have over 20,000 patients today who in the past 8 weeks were not able to go through an important examination or surgery. They still need to be cared for. We cannot treat them with 30% of the capacities from before the crisis started. We know that even before the crisis, capacities were often not enough".
In order to make up for the delay and guarantee medical treatment for Covid and non-Covid patients even during a possible second Covid-19 wave, a unified national approach is required. Either in a hospital or in a facility which can be built next to an already existing hospital.
"Like they did in China, for example. There are experts on this matter available abroad who we could hire to construct such facilities near a hospital. The national structure would then of course be used by the four hospitals. There are some great models for this here in Luxembourg, like INCCI, where a number of hospitals use a shared infrastructure".
According to AMMD, they requested a meeting with the Minister of Health, Paulette Lenert to discuss such a concept and are currently awaiting a response.
For the national coordinator of hospitals during the Covid-19 crisis, Dr Philippe Turk, the idea of a centralised facility is reasonable only once a small number of Covid-patients are hospitalised with a maximum of 10 in intensive care. Any more, and especially during a second wave, other hospitals would need to jump in again to take on the influx of patients. This is mainly due to the fact that Covid-patients in intensive treatment units require highly technical medical care and a lot of medical personnel.
"Of course, later on you can ask whether we should focus on two facilities instead of four but this is all up for discussion. We also have a meeting next week with the Minister of Health and the administrations of the hospitals to discuss this"
However, the federation of hospitals has already declared in a letter to the Minister of Health on Monday that they currently do not see a need for a Covid-19 hospital.
Meanwhile, the CHL has stated that once the number of Covid-19 patients has sufficiently decreased; so that the national service of infectious diseases can handle the situation with their 18 beds, it would be willing to regroup all of them.
