All serious COVID-19 cases to be transported to Budapest
The Operative Board have put out two important instructions concerning the Hungarian health care system.
One of the instructions was announced on May 4, and it is about a previous decree, which had stated that each patient had to be tested for coronavirus before intubation. However, this would have been impossible to follow through, so the Operative Board withdrew it, reported 444.
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Masked ventilation in hospice-palliative care, and respiratory aspiration in neonatalogical care, however, remained in the instructions, meaning that PCR tests must be done before these treatments, but these are not entirely realistic either.
The other provisions were announced on May 8 and were written by Cecília Müller, and approved by Miklós Kásler, minister of the Ministry of Human Resources.
This new provision states that the National Hematology and Infectology Institute of the Southern Pest Central Hospital, as well as the National Korányi Pulmonology Institute, will treat moderate, severe or critical patients, suffering from COVID-19. Any patients suspected or confirmed of having the new coronavirus have to be taken to either of the hospitals mentioned above if they are in the condition to be transported.
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This is, however, not mindful of the patients at all. Even a quick trip for a CAT scan could be harmful and may risk a patient in serious condition. Critical patients can only be transported with good reason, good reason meaning that their current location cannot provide proper treatment or therapy that would be required for recovery.
But the new provision would have critical patients be transported even if they can be treated appropriately at their current hospital.
In Hungary, patient transport is currently only possible on the ground, which means that in some cases, patients would have to be driven through half the country. Transportation via helicopter is not possible, because neither of the hospitals has a landing area; current rules prohibit it, and their disinfection would be difficult afterwards.
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Source: https://rontgen.444.hu/
It is worth adding that the experience of countries with a much higher number cases (the UK to name but one) is that with patients suffering from Covid 19, intubation (being put on a ventilator) is frequently counter productive and aggravates the lung damage. Hence the surfeit of unused ventilators, when at one time it was feared that there would not be enough. The current survival rate for intubated patients with Covid 19 is 5 out of 10. Patients who previously would have been intubated but are now given oxygen without intubation seem to have a lower morbidity rate.