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The situation in Swiss hospitals is tense. On Tuesday, the Federal Office of Public Health (BAG) reported a total of 4,560 new infections and 142 deaths – 299 people had to be hospitalized. Even as the curve of new coronary infections flattens out from the past few days, the pressure in intensive care units is increasing. In Switzerland there are currently 3829 Covid patients hospitalized, 542 of them in intensive care. The percentage of coronally infected people in intensive care units is currently 60%. At the beginning of November it was 40 percent.
In fact, of the 1,142 intensive care beds in Switzerland, 900 are currently occupied according to information provided by the coordinated medical service KSD. This corresponds to an intensive care bed occupancy rate of 79% and the trend is increasing. Because ten days ago the occupancy of the ICU beds was 70%. “The intensive care units are very busy,” KSD’s Andreas Stettbacher said Tuesday afternoon. At that time, only 242 free intensive care beds remained in Switzerland.
The provision of an intensive care bed is around 200,000 francs
Intensive care units have been battling the collapse for weeks. Because corona patients who need to be treated in the ICU stay there much longer than other ICU patients. The experience of the hospitals of the “Common Health Region” of both Basel shows: a Covid-19 patient of the first wave was in intensive care for an average of eight to twelve days.
“Currently, the length of stay in the intensive care unit is shorter than in spring, fewer patients with Covid-19 need to be intubated and ventilated,” doctor Peter Indra, head of health at the Canton of Health Department told BLICK. Basel-City. Reason: Corona patients are even younger than the first wave. “But the average age and therefore the length of hospitalization are increasing,” says Indra.
According to Indra, equipping an intensive care bed including equipment costs around 200,000 francs. At 40,000 to 60,000 francs, a fan is the most expensive to buy. For comparison: a perfusor in the infusion pump tower costs between 1,000 and 3,000 francs.
Patients who need to be ventilated cost around 4,000 francs a day
According to Peter Steiger, head of the intensive care unit at the University Hospital of Zurich, the equipment of the intensive care bed shown in the photo of the Dresden University Hospital corresponds to that of the Swiss hospitals. “However, Ecmo pumps are rarely used in severe coronary patients with severe course at our University Hospital in Zurich,” Steiger tells BLICK.
On average, a normal hospital stay costs around 10,000 francs. “A patient’s hospital stay is five or six days. The costs for a day in the intensive care unit usually range from 2,000 to 3,000 francs per patient. However, if the patient in the intensive care unit of a university hospital has to be ventilated and treated more intensively, the costs go up to around 4,000 francs a day, ”explains Indra.
“The Corona patient in an intensive care unit costs up to 120,000 francs”
In the case of Covid 19 patients, on the other hand, both the costs and the length of hospital stay differ significantly. “If a coronary patient is treated in an intensive care unit for two or three weeks, it costs up to 120,000 francs,” Verena Nold, director of the Swiss health insurance association Santésuisse, tells BLICK.
In the fight against the crown pandemic, the hospitals of the cantons of Basel-Stadt and Basel-Landschaft concluded a joint agreement on the management of intensive care patients at the end of October 2020. The purpose of this concept: to use common resources to prevent hospitals from being overloaded with corona patients in need of intensive care and to avoid collapse.
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