The Association of State Hospitals on Wednesday (2.2.) discussed the current situation in hospitals. At the meeting, representatives of state hospitals shared experience in preparing for the wave of micron. The meeting under the auspices of the Minister of Health Vladimír Lengvarski hosted the director of the University Hospital Bratislava (UNB) Roland Schaller. The aim of the working session was to share experience from the history of the COVID-19 pandemic in hospitals and to coordinate common procedures so that healthcare facilities can effectively counter the incoming wave caused by the micron variant.
The wave of micron has now increased the number of positive tests, but it has not caused much pressure on hospitals. However, healthcare facilities are prepared for a number of alternatives including the possible need to re-increase the number of reprofiled beds for patients with COVID-19. The meeting was also attended by State Secretary of the Ministry of Health Lenka Dunajová Družkovská.
We follow the situation in hospitals closely and set steps in advance. At this point, we can say that we have good prospects, we are not even on a third of filling the berth capacity, and we can already say that the current wave of micron will be quick. However, we have ensured that we can respond to different situations. Thanks to the Ministry's call today, more than 360 students of general medicine and nursing are helping out in hospitals and, if necessary, the sector can help itself, for example, through cooperation with spa facilities, and the State Secretary of MZ SR Lenka Dunajová Družkovská explained.
The meeting was chaired by the president of the Association of State Hospitals and the general director of the National Institute of Heart and Vascular Diseases, a.s., Mongi Msolly. Despite the pandemic situation, we met and discussed important topical topics in person. With the emergence of more infectious variant micron, the present proposed intensive cooperation in addition to crisis crews, as well as direct director of health facilities associated with AŠN SR, in order to increase prompt mutual assistance and assistance within regions. We agreed to share documents drawn up in cooperation with higher territorial units and communicated with MZ SR for maintaining pressure before admission to hospitals. We discussed the energy situation, the prices of which have risen enormously compared to last year and represent a huge financial burden on our health establishments. We discussed relations with health insurance companies, for which separate negotiations will be in Banská Bystrica next week. We were also discussing the workload of doctors, the topic was hospital discharge, and said Mongi Msolly, president of the Association of State Hospitals and general director of the National Institute of Heart and Vascular Diseases, a.s.
The director of the largest Slovak hospital Roland Schaller informed members of the association about the possibility of coordination of activities related to the dissemination of extremely infectious micron variant. As a total of five devices fall under UNB, setting up proper and effective cooperation between them is crucial in all circumstances, not just in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The basis is to be regularly and qualitatively informed about the state of play within each of our hospitals and, based on experience from previous waves, to anticipate where the problem might arise and to prepare a possible solution to the potential crisis situation before it is created;– concluded by Roland Schaller, Director of UNB