The last team of health professionals from the German Armed Forces , that have been ensuring, since February, a Unit of Intensive Care at Hospital da Luz Lisboa, made available to the National Health Service (SNS) to aid in the combat against the COVID-19 pandemic , returned to its country of origin, last 23 of March. “This was an unprecedented, and in that sense, beneficial and fruitful partnership. It could hardly have gone better. On our part, the feeling is that of duty accomplished”, highlights Rui Maio , the clinical director of Hospital da Luz Lisboa. Altogether, since February 8, the German mission – comprising two teams, each working along three weeks – treated 16 patients , having registered three deaths. The unit counted with 8 beds in intensive care, the transfer of patients being determined by CARMIN (Coordination of the National Response to Covid-19 in Intensive Medicine). “In terms of logistics and medical effort, it was a tough mission and quite different from other military missions in the medical field, that we usually have”, stated the lieutenant colonel Richard Glied , anaesthetist and head of the second team, in declarations to radio station TSF. “Our speciality is the prompt stabilization of patients that are badly wounded in military conflicts, the organization of their transporting and, within a few hours, at most two days, their delivery to the hospital of destination”, he clarified. The head of the team also informed that all the material that the German mission brought with and donated Portugal – such as ventilators (that were used at HL Lisboa), infusion pumps and perfusion syringes, among other medical equipment – will be distributed by the Ministry of Health to public hospitals. ‘A remarkable experience’ “It was a remarkable experience, to which contributed all our teams, not only in the clinical area, but also in maintenance and information systems”, states Pedro Patrício, the director of operations of HL Lisboa, reminding that this ICU was installed in 24 hours . The German teams exercised functions at HL Lisboa like any other team of intensive care, with daily meetings and information handover in shift changes. In fact, it was part of the process of integration the knowledge of all internal circuits and, in general, “the interaction with all departments was quite positive, with a strong feeling of team spirit among the collaborators of the hospital, who made an effort to answer their requests in the shortest time possible”, further adds Rui Maio. While they were here, the German health professionals counted permanently with the backing of all clinical resources from HL Lisboa , namely of the medical specialties of support to the intensive care unit, clinical pathology, imaging exams, as well as the supply chains of clinical consumables and medication. The communication between all was generally made in English, but in the ICU run by the German mission there were permanently present two HL Lisboa health professionals, one of them Portuguese-German and both fluent in that language, who answered to any supplementary need and facilitated the contacts with the patients’ families, either to gather data or to give information on the patients’ medical condition. The military, on their turn, had the concern to learn a few words in Portuguese to be able to address the patients and reassure them, namely when they were extubated and awakened. The hospital also provided them with guidebooks in German-Portuguese, with basic information on the hospital and a few elementary words and expressions. In the photo above , a group of German and Portuguese professionals (with Pedro Patrício, Rui Maio, the executive director Pedro Líbano Monteiro and the CEO of Luz Saúde Isabel Vaz, in the centre), when they said goodbye to HL Lisboa.
