After two years of corona protection measures, pathogens that are dangerous for the youngest, such as RSV, are rampant. In Saxony, too, seriously ill little patients fill the children's wards - with consequences for the burdened hospitals.
Dresden/Leipzig (dpa/sn) - The wave of respiratory infections among 0 to 15 year olds is pushing the children's clinics in Saxony to their limits. "It's not as bad as in other federal states like Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia or Berlin," says Reinhard Berner, director of the children's clinic at the Dresden University Hospital. But there is an enormous rush to practices and emergency rooms across the country. "We are actually not in a catastrophe, but in crisis mode," says Wieland Kiess, head of the children's clinic at the University Hospital in Leipzig.
The enormous increase in influenza and infections with the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), which is dangerous for babies and small children, has made the situation even worse. The winter cold wave does not come as a surprise, says Kiess. In the corona pandemic, children were unable to develop immunity to this and other common viruses because they did not go to daycare, wore masks and were vaccinated. "And now the whole range of cold viruses is hitting the country in a situation where the affected children are not immunized from infancy to the age of three or four."
According to the State Research Institute (LUA), the number of cases of RSV infection among 0 to 15 year olds in Bavaria has increased sixfold since the beginning of November, from 63 in the first week and 366 in the past week. Since the beginning of the cold season, the number of cases in this age group has totaled 834 - the five-year average is 627. The number of hospitalized patients increased from 19 to 102. In the case of influenza, the number of cases increased eightfold to 328.
According to Kiess, the children's clinic in Dresden is quite full, while the one in Leipzig is packed. "But we can do it and never turn away a child who has acute shortness of breath or is seriously ill." However, this happens on the backs of other small patients who are rescheduled for later operations, for example. And children who are doing reasonably well again would be released. About a fifth of the beds in Dresden and Leipzig are currently occupied by RSV-infected children.
The Ministry of Social Affairs does not see a "dramatic situation" and assumes that the hospitals can ensure patient care with the existing capacities, cooperation or the transfer of patients. The situation is still tense in many places, also because a lot of staff are absent, it said on request. Pediatrician practices are also heavily used, but that is typical for the time of year and not surprising.
Kiess can only shake his head at the proposal by Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) to use nursing staff from adult medicine. "They don't have any anymore." Because now many nurses and doctors are sick.
