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 Despite early studies showing a lower risk of severe disease or
hospitalisation from Omicron compared to the previously-dominant
Delta variant, healthcare networks across Spain, Britain, Italy and
beyond have found themselves in increasingly desperate
circumstances.
Britain put its biggest private health companies on high alert on
Monday to deliver key treatments including cancer surgery should
unsustainable levels of hospitalisations or staff absences overwhelm
National Health Service (NHS) hospitals in England.
The country also began deploying military personnel to support
hospitals on Friday due to record COVID-19 cases.
"Omicron means more patients to treat and fewer staff to treat
them," NHS Medical Director Professor Stephen Powis said in a
statement.
In the United States, hospitals are postponing elective surgeries to
free up staff and beds, while Spain's primary healthcare network is
so strained that on the penultimate day of 2021 authorities in the
northeastern region of Aragon authorised the reincorporation of
retired medical workers and nurses.
"The exponential increase in cases means primary care can perform
neither their contact tracing and vaccination campaign duties
adequately, nor their ordinary activities," the authorities said in
a statement.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Monday it may be time
to use different parameters to track the pandemic, confirming a
report from El Pais newspaper.
El Pais said the government was considering methods similar to those
used to track flu, without such widespread testing and recording of
cases.
INFECTION RATES RISING SHARPLY
Front-line workers such as nurses and physiotherapists are the
hardest hit, Spanish nursing union SATSE said in a statement, noting
that in Andalusia they accounted for more than 30% of staff on COVID-related
leave in the second half of December.
The sunny southern region registered roughly 1,000 workers infected
with the coronavirus in the final weeks of the year, "generating
grave issues in service coverage", the statement said.
In the Netherlands, infection rates are also rising sharply among
hospital staff, particularly nurses and nursing assistants, Dutch
daily De Telegraaf reported on Friday, following a survey of eight
major hospitals.
In the worst cases, one in four tested positive in the run-up to
Christmas, as in Amsterdam's University Medical Centre where 25% of
staff are now testing positive, compared to 5% a week ago.
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 Dutch hospitals are considering
changing their quarantine rules so infected
staff who do not have symptoms can come to work,
De Telegraaf said, as Dutch daily case numbers
break records despite a strict lockdown since
December 19.
In Italy, the problem of infected health workers
- more than 12,800 according to data gathered
last week - is being compounded by the
suspension of doctors, nurses, and
administrative staff who are not vaccinated and
represent just over 4% of the total workforce.
PEAK ON HORIZON
In a last-ditch bid to plug gaps in the service,
Italian health agencies are freezing or
deferring staff holidays, and freezing or
postponing scheduled surgeries not classified as
"urgent". Hospitalisations in
Britain are already at their highest since last February and the NHS
is expected to face even more pressure as COVID-19 surges amongst
older people.
"We are still seeing rising hospitalisations, particularly with the
case rate rising in older age groups. That is of concern," UK health
minister Sajid Javid said on Friday. "When we look at the NHS, it
will be a rocky few weeks ahead."
An average of around 80,000 medical staff were absent from work
every day in the week to Jan. 2 - the most recent period for which
data is available - a 13% rise on the previous week, according to
NHS England. Almost half of those absences, or 44%, were due to
COVID-19, a rise of more than a fifth from the week earlier.
Rafael Bengoa, co-founder of Bilbao's Institute for Health and
Strategy and a former senior WHO official, said Spain had failed to
take sufficient measures to reinforce vital services and pressure
would continue to ratchet up.
"Spain has several weeks - basically all of January - of rising
cases...then hopefully we'll hit a plateau that goes down just as
fast," he told Reuters.
He considers it unlikely that a more infectious variant which is
also more deadly than Omicron will appear and is optimistic the
current wave might signal the beginning of the pandemic's end.
 "Pandemics don't end with a huge boom but with small waves because
so many have been infected or vaccinated...After Omicron we
shouldn't have to be concerned with anything more than small waves."
(Reporting by Clara-Laeila Laudette, Nathan Allen and Inti Landauro
in Madrid, Alistair Smout in London, Emilio Parodi in Milan;
additional reporting by Stephanie van den Berg in Amsterdam; writing
by Clara-Laeila Laudette; editing by Kirsten Donovan)
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