With a growing shortage of Covid-19 beds and doctors, the Lithuanian healthcare system is now close to collapse, doctors have warned.
Last week, the outgoing government announced a second quarantine in Lithuania. At the same time, it became clear that the five major hospitals in the country were working almost at their full capacity.
“As for the Vilnius region, the situation is tense, but it is not critical. We have beds for more than one day, with a possibility to expand,” Aušra Bilotienė-Motiejūnienė, head of management at Santara Clinics, said.
According to doctors at Kaunas Hospital of Lithuanian University of Health Sciences (LSMU), however, they will soon lack human resources and have called for volunteers.
“The staff are working beyond their capacity. Both the intensive care and resuscitation units for Covid-19 patients have already filled up. There is a great need for additional hands,” Saulius Tvirbutas, a representative of the LSMU hospital, said.
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The situation is similar in Šiauliai Hospital, where many doctors have succumbed to coronavirus.
“We have three infectologists for 100 patients. Our doctors carry an inadequate load. The healthcare system is close to a total collapse,” Remigijus Mažeika, head of Šiauliai Republican Hospital, said.
Due to the shortage of beds, some patients from Šiauliai need to go to a nearby town of Mažeikiai. But its hospital has only partially prepared to treat those infected with Covid-19.
“To tell you the truth, we haven’t managed to prepare. Out of 20 required beds, only 12 are ready. We need to prepare additional 25 beds,” said Sigitas Kaktys, head of Mažeikiai Hospital.
According to Health Minister Aurelijus Veryga, the government has come up with several contingency plans to deal with a possible shortage of Covid-19 beds.
In the five major hospitals, there are 401 spots for coronavirus patients, with a possibility to add another 262, he said. If these hospitals reached their capacity, patients would need to go to regional hospitals, where 587 extra spots are available.
But the head of Mažeikiai hospital said that not all of the required extra beds have been prepared on time because of the lack of funds.
“On October 23, we received money to cover the costs of the first wave of Covid-19 in spring. We did not have funds to adapt to the current needs,” Kaktys explained.
Many employees of the regional hospital also belong to the higher risk group due to their age or medical conditions.
The government therefore had to send resident doctors to places where the shortage of medical staff is the most severe. But young medics say they were not trained to take care of Covid-19 patients and criticise the government for not preparing for the second coronavirus wave in advance.
According to Kaktys, regional hospitals received little information on how the epidemiological situation might develop and what actions they might need to take. The healthcare strategists failed to act on time to prevent the virus from spreading, he said.
“Maybe the delay was due to the election. But people will now suffer, and this will be too high a price,” Kaktys added.
Read more: Understaffed and overwhelmed: Lithuania's health officials struggle to contain pandemic
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