Due to the spread of the new coronavirus infection, hospitals in Tokyo had to temporarily stop accepting emergency patients due to a series of staff members who could not go to work due to family infections in addition to dealing with corona patients. ..

The Omori Red Cross Hospital in Ota Ward, Tokyo, has completely stopped accepting emergency patients, including patients with the new corona, for more than four days from the 3rd to the 7th of this month.



At the hospital, about 60% of the 42 corona beds are filled, and although there is still room, many elderly people and corona patients who need assistance required nearly twice as much labor as usual.



Under these circumstances, doctors and nurses became infected and became close contacts, and about 30 employees were unable to commute due to the closure of nursery schools, etc., and the number of personnel required to maintain the emergency outpatient department was sufficient. It means that it is gone.



After inspecting the staff, we resumed the emergency outpatient department from the afternoon of the 7th, but we have to reduce the acceptance to about half of the usual because we are reducing the number of general beds to secure the corona beds.



Even so, more than 30 requests for transport acceptance are received one after another in half a day, and it is not uncommon for patients to decline acceptance.



Hiroshi Nakase, director of the Omori Red Cross Hospital, said, "While the efficiency of the emergency outpatient department is declining due to infection control, the number of people who cannot commute to work has increased and we have to suspend it temporarily. The emergency patient has also lost his place and we have to deal with it two fronts. "