I had observed the significant increase of ambulances (seen and heard) after the mass vaccination campaign had begun. It went in for a few months and I was by no means the only one to notice. This includes several ambulances parked on my street, in the space of a few weeks, which is very unusual. The frantic noise of the sirens are hard to ignore. Conversely, there were very few ambulances during the lockdown.
This post has been from last year, but going over this thread, I thought to post the following piece from Boris Reitschuster forwarded to me by a friend:
Seit Mai 2021 sind die Zahlen der Rettungseinsätze sprunghaft angestiegen, die Retter sind hoffnungslos überlastet. Warum? Auf diese Frage gibt es zumindest offiziell keine Antwort.
reitschuster.de
Too many emergency calls: critical meeting at Berlin fire brigade
"At times, not a single ambulance available".
"Then there will be deaths": These are drastic sentences that were spoken at the crisis meeting of the Berlin fire brigade today, Monday. The reason for the extraordinary staff meeting, at which the fury of the firefighters was vented: "The current emergency situation, a state of emergency is being declared almost daily," as the Berliner Zeitung reports:
"At times, not a single ambulance is available."
Due to numerous problems, the worst is looming, according to a fire official. According to the report, the officer told state fire director Karsten Homrighausen in front of the assembled crew: "If we continue the way we're going right now, there will be dead people." Emergency calls for sleep disorders, nausea or sprains would tie up cars and crews, who would then be absent "for real emergencies such as strokes or heart attacks".
Conditions at hospitals are also reportedly worrying.
Only recently, a nine-week-old baby had to be resuscitated. What happened then is speechless: "Shortly before the colleagues arrive at the hospital, the hospital calls us and says: we can't treat." The crew had to drive on, as the official at the meeting reported, according to the Berliner Zeitung: "They then turned around, with the mother on board. Such a thing cannot be!"
The report continues: "A representative of the staff council said at the meeting that they were currently 'in a state of emergency' and had an 'acute problem'. However, that is not what the management of the authority says. A central accusation in this context, for which there was much applause: the higher the rank, the less responsibility is taken."
According to the Berliner Zeitung,
the Berlin Fire Brigade's rescue service is currently "in a state of emergency almost every day": "In 2020, according to information from the fire brigade, there were 1280 calls a day.
Since May 2021, the numbers have jumped to an average of 1430 (until September). It was not apparent what was causing this increase in the number of calls, it said on Monday."
I leave it to you, dear readers, to decide whether you assume that there is a white elephant in the room here or not. At least that was my first thought. It is a pity that, at least according to the Berliner Zeitung report, no such questions were asked at the staff meeting. And the Berliner Zeitung itself does not address them either.
There is no white elephant in the room, however, that the conditions at the Berlin Rescuers are an indictment of the red-red-green senate. It prefers to deal with niche issues. Life-saving is obviously not one of them.
PS: After writing this article, I remembered a
letter from a reader with whom I now have regular contact and whom I trust. He wrote to me:
"Heart problems/firefighters.
I ride along in the ambulance service about once a month, about six to eight missions.
I can confirm from my own experience: Patients call the ambulance service because of heart and circulation problems. They report that they were vaccinated a few hours ago.
We take them to the hospital and enter "syncope", for example. The vaccination thing is not mentioned.
This case happens at least once on almost every shift."
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
Some reader comments below say:
"I live next to a hospital ... yes, you hear more blue light sirens on the street all the time. My impression: the injection works."
"I can confirm that the injection must work. I don't live near a hospital and live in a small suburb of a big city. In one hour at the composter, I have now seen the emergency doctor rush past 4 times. That's striking because there was no such thing before."
I can corroborate as well from observations over the last six months or so that the frequency of ambulance activity has increased. Living in the center of a big city, with the ringroad in front of the house where my apartment is in, I was rather careful about such assessments before since firebrigade and ambulance drivers use that road frequently.
But the frequency has risen; and this was also observed by the friend who forwarded me the article and happens to live in the same city, but more in the outer fringes.
