A hospital in western Poland has issued an appeal for nuns to help care for coronavirus patients as it struggles to cope with a major outbreak of the virus.
The Provincial Hospital in Gorzów Wielopolski, a town of 115,000 people, has been hit hard by the current record levels of coronavirus infections in Poland.
The country passed 2,000 daily new cases for the first time last week and has remained around that level since. Today it recorded its highest ever number of coronavirus deaths.
That has meant more patients for the hospital in Gorzów Wielopolski, but also fewer available workers after 30 of its medical staff tested positive for the virus, reports TVP.
In response, the hospital’s board has written to the Conference of Major Superiors of Female Religious Congregations in Poland, a body that represents women’s Catholic religious orders, to ask for nuns to provide nursing care for COVID-19 patients in the infectious diseases ward.
“The hospital needs people to perform nursing activities that do not require nursing training,” the hospital’s spokeswoman, Agnieszka Wiśniewska, explained to TVN24.
“For sisters who decide to help in the care of COVID patients, the hospital offers 24-hour room and board, as well as remuneration 20% higher than the [usual] hospital rate,” she added.
Wiśniewska noted that the hospital is struggling in particular due to an outbreak of coronavirus in a nearby care home, where over 100 residents and staff were infected. Many have had to be transferred to hospital.
The developments in Gorzów Wielopolski come amid reports around the country of some hospitals struggling to deal with record numbers of COVID-19 patients.
Some – including in cities such as Kraków and Toruń – have filled all their intensive care beds and ventilators. In one case last week, a 70-year-old man died after medical staff were unable to find a bed for him.
The health ministry’s spokesman, Wojciech Andrusiewicz, said yesterday that there “are currently enough Covid beds”. But he admitted that “there will be cases where in a certain hospital there is a lack of spaces” and that the ministry is looking to better coordinate patient care as well as increasing the number of beds.
It also emerged yesterday that supplies of Remdesivir, a drug used to treat COVID-19, have run low, with new patients not being offered the medication.
The next delivery of the drug – which is ordered through a tender process run and paid for by the European Union – will not arrive until 11 October. The Polish government is looking to obtain its own supplies in the meantime, reported Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
The numbers of active cases of coronavirus in Poland (27,441) and of hospitalised cases (3,719) are both at their highest ever level, while today’s death figure (58) is the highest recorded since the start of the pandemic. The number of occupied ventilators increased from 152 to 263 over the last week.
And on top of that, today Poland reported its highest Covid-19 death toll, with 58 deaths in last 24 hrs. Number of people on respirators also jumped 20 per cent in one day. https://t.co/UsUArTSh4Y
— James Shotter (@JamesShotter) October 6, 2020
Main image credit: Jakub Wlodek / Agencja Gazeta
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
