Intensive care may cause early collapse of medical system
The Japanese Association of Intensive Care Medicine is urgently seeking specialists and experienced physicians, etc., regarding the intensive care that may be taken if the new coronavirus patient becomes severe, as the medical system may collapse very quickly Issued an urgent statement that it should be.
The Japanese Society of Intensive Care Medicine, which is made up of specialist doctors, issued an emergency statement on January 1 this month.
That said, at the end of last month, the mortality rate in Italy was 11.7%, compared to 1.1% in Germany, mainly due to differences in intensive care regimes.
Japan has a sense of danger that intensive care units per 100,000 population are less than half that of Italy and that the intensive care system is likely to collapse very quickly.
In the case of new coronavirus patients, intensive care units need four times as many nurses to prevent infection.
He pointed out that few doctors and nurses can handle equipment such as ventilators and heart-lung machines called ECMO, which is used for patients with extremely severe symptoms.
For this reason, of the approximately 6,500 intensive care units in Japan, there may be less than 1,000 beds that can actually respond to patients with the new coronavirus, and even if the number is increased, the current system does Point out that it cannot be done.
The Society has therefore urged that all measures be taken to maintain an intensive care system, including the urgent acquisition of physicians who have experienced the treatment of critically ill patients.
ECMO Expertise required Limited available doctors
ECMO is a heart-lung machine used for patients with extremely severe pneumonia.
It is an advanced treatment that temporarily substitutes the function of the lungs by sending oxygen directly to the drawn blood. It is intended to recover the lungs by resting them while wearing.
According to the Japanese Society of Intensive Care Medicine, as of 30th of last month, at least 40 patients with pneumonia due to the novel coronavirus in Japan had been treated with ECMO, of which about half had recovered and 19 had recovered. That he died.
According to the academic society, there are about 1,400 ECMOs in Japan, but there are only a limited number of doctors and nurses who can respond to the need for specialized skills in mounting and management, and about 500 people can respond to patients with the new coronavirus About a minute.
The government plans to include the cost of emergency measures in the emergency budget and the supplementary budget for the current fiscal year, call on manufacturers to increase production, and develop a system for developing and dispatching human resources capable of handling equipment.