Corona Doctor: I've never seen a hospital so empty
When the media in February began to report chaotic conditions in the Italian hospitals, the news made Gitte Anna Madsen and her colleagues at Aarhus University Hospital feel terribly uneasy.
Soon they would stand with the first corona patients themselves. The question was how many would come and when.
At Aarhus University Hospital, where Gitte Anna Madsen is a doctor specialised in lung diseases, a major preparation work was underway.
“A whole new organisation of the hospital was introduced, ”says Gitte Anna Madsen.
New, stricter procedures for hand hygiene and teamwork were introduced. Every other chair was removed in the meeting rooms, and extra hand sanitisers were installed throughout the departments.
Four covid clusters were created, each with beds for up to 40 patients. Doctors and nurses from various departments were brought together in the clusters. Gitte Anna Madsen's department was affiliated with covid cluster 4.
Doctors and nurses underwent training in dealing with covid patients, where they practiced, among other things, wearing protective equipment, including the special FFP3 masks to use when covid patients should have a higher oxygen flow or intubation. Even the food in the hospital had to be handled differently by individual packaging.
»We read all the articles about covid-19 we could get close to. My colleagues tried to absorb all the knowledge about the new virus from scientific articles and by contacting doctors they knew in Italian hospitals.
The hospital was quite ready to receive a large number of patients with covid disease when the infection was expected to peak at Easter. But the big wave never came.
"There has not been a large number of covid patients, nor has there been a large number of other patients," says Gitte Anna Madsen.
Only one of the four covid clusters is in use and only a few patients. The others are empty.
All Easter, Gitte Anna Madsen was on guard, among other things at the emergency room, which receives possible coronary infections. She had expected a big number of corona infections in those days, but in the midst of the big global pandemic, she had some completely silent guards.
“I was on duty all the days of Easter and I saw almost no patients. It was very special. Half the beds were empty and nurses were sent home. We were in no way pressured, ”says Gitte Anna Madsen.
She is convinced that it is the shutdown of Denmark that has averted an overload of the Danish hospitals.