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Bad Homburg (dpa) - Fresenius boss Stephan Sturm criticizes the Corona crisis for overly looking at the intensive care capacities of the clinics.

"The one-sided focus of politics on intensive care beds is wrong," said the chief executive of the medical company and hospital operator to the news agencies dpa and dpa-AFX.

Where there were bottlenecks in hospitals, it was mostly because of the lack of intensive care staff and not because of the lack of intensive care beds.

The much-discussed shortage of staff already existed before the Corona crisis, said Sturm.

With its subsidiary Helios, Fresenius is Germany's largest private clinic operator.

The chain treats around 5.6 million patients in this country every year.

"Even if intensive care capacities are exhausted, Covid patients can be treated as inpatients," said Sturm.

Corona patients can also be treated in appropriately upgraded intermediate care wards, an intermediate stage between normal and intensive care wards.

Clinical data showed a comparably low mortality rate among corona patients in other countries, while there a lower proportion was in intensive care units.

To cope with the pandemic, better networking of the hospitals in Germany is necessary, said Sturm.

For example, clinics from less affected regions could accept corona patients from hotspots.

"We need more transparency in the health system."

There is resistance to a central register that would make it easier to distribute patients.

"Even if not every patient can be transported, we can do better here."

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"Corona is there and a very serious disease," emphasized the manager.

A one-sided orientation of politics on the virus is wrong.

“Still, there are heart attacks and strokes.

It would be wrong to forego preventive examinations for fear of the coronavirus.

I appeal to people: go to the doctor! "

Otherwise, the price will be paid in the coming years in the form of excess mortality, for example for cancer patients.

"We also see many heart attacks and strokes far too late."

Helios clinics for occupancy of the houses

Fresenius Helios

German interdisciplinary association for emergency and intensive care medicine on intensive care capacities