VARSAW (Reuters) – Some Polish doctors and nurses only take naps between shifts as they fight a third wave of coronavirus, the health minister said on Friday amid reports of medical staff using oxygen and intravenous drops to boost their energy. .
The 38-million-strong country, the largest in the eastern wing of the European Union, reported 768 coronavirus-related deaths on Friday, after a new record 954 deaths on Thursday.
“This is in fact a war and the situation requires non-standard behaviors,” he told private radio station RMF 24.
“These are the hardest and most difficult images, reflecting the burden of this work,” Niedzielski said when asked to comment that some doctors use drip and oxygen to regain strength to work.
“When I visited a temporary hospital in Katowice I saw doctors and nurses sleeping to rest between their shifts. The intensity of the work is important, which results from the staff shortage, ”Niedzielski said.
Poland recorded a record number of new cases last week at around 35,000 a day and on Wednesday the government extended the restrictions until April 18 and kept kindergartens, schools, shopping malls, hotels, cinemas closed. and theaters.
The previous 24-hour death toll was 674, as reported in November. On Friday Poland reported 28,487 new coronavirus infections, bringing the total to more than 2.5 million.
“If we look at the course of the number of new infections, it seems that the peak of infections has lagged behind,” Niedzielski told a news conference, warning of complacency.
“The pandemic is still a real threat and the fact that we are seeing some slight falls is not at all a sign that will allow us to think that we have the worst behind … Now we will have to make a boom, so to speak, in hospitals,” he said. to say.
Reports by Agnieszka Barteczko and Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk; Edited by Nick Macfie