“It’s a Mistake To Think We Have this Disease Under Control”

How are things going with the treatment of COVID patients? And what happens if infection rates continue to rise? Doctors discuss their daily lives on the front lines of the coronavirus.

Interviews Conducted by Katja Thimm und Alfred Weinzierl
Nov. 12, 2020

Yaosi Li, 37, specialist for internal medicine at the Clinic for Infectiology and Pneumology at Berlin’s Charité University Hospital

“There are currently 12 COVID-19 patients in the 18 beds at our intensive care unit. One has been here since spring, and three have been here since the summer months. Our patients are usually the most severe cases: Treating lung failure is one of our main areas of focus. Some of my colleagues are also responsible for connecting patients with particularly advanced lung failure to an artificial lung, an ECMO, at other hospitals. Afterward, they bring the patients to us by helicopter or ambulance. Our youngest COVID-19 patient was 27 years old.

Many of the patients have to lie on their stomachs as they are ventilated. We turn them over on their backs once a day for personal hygiene and to examine them. You do an ultrasound and check to see if the tube is still in place. If everything is OK, you then turn the patient back on their stomach. It’s very time consuming, especially for the nursing staff, but doctors are also busy with this procedure for an hour and a half a day for each patient. It usually takes five of us to turn a patient over. The doctor holds the patient’s head and two nurses stand on the right and the left. If the patient needs artificial respiration, we bring in a sixth colleague who pays attention to that device.

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As doctors, we work 12-hour shifts and I don’t feel overtaxed yet. But if we have to treat an increasing number of patients soon and tend to more intensive care beds, I worry that the overall quality of treatment will go down.

There is far too little public discussion about the fact that very few who survive lung failure can be nursed back to their previous level of health. And if they can be, it can take months or even years before they return to normality. It’s a mistake to think that we have this disease under control as long as there is enough intensive care beds available.”

Read more at www.spiegel.de