DGIIN promotes European solidarity in the corona crisis

07.04.2020 13:44

Due to the serious crisis in the health systems in neighboring European countries, the German Society for Intensive Care Medicine and Emergency Medicine (DGIIN) is promoting broad solidarity within Europe. Thanks to the measures taken early, Germany has by far the most intensive care beds available. The number of ventilated patients with COVID-19 is still relatively low compared to the number of free beds, experts explain. As long as there is sufficient capacity, the specialist society advocates helping neighboring European countries.

With the leading participation of Professor Dr. Christian Karagiannidis and Professor Dr. Uwe Janssens, both board members of the DGIIN, created the DIVI intensive register. Over the next week, this will be able to provide precise forecasts on the further course of patients with COVID-19 who require ventilation. “This data should then form the basis for managing intensive care patients in Germany. If the number of Covid-19 patients requiring intensive care in Germany remains relatively low, this data will also provide help in managing support for our European neighboring countries - without the population in Germany being disadvantaged," explains Karagiannidis, who is also the senior physician and head of the ECMO center at the Cologne-Mehrheim Lung Clinic.

The DGIIN recommends setting up a central coordination point in the Federal Ministry of Health with the participation of all intensive care specialist societies. “This office could then coordinate the capacities in hospitals across Germany and thus provide relief for clinics at their capacity limits and use free beds in other locations,” says Karagiannidis.

“Several federal states are currently refusing to admit patients from abroad requiring intensive care,” explains Professor Dr. Stefan Kluge, board member of the DGIIN and director of the Clinic for Intensive Care Medicine at the University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf. The DGIIN agrees that it is our moral and social duty to help our European neighbors as long as we still have sufficient, unproven capacity.