A new baby is one of life’s greatest gifts, but for Jaqueline and her husband, Evgeny, the birth seemed almost like a miracle. Jaqueline had been struck by a car as she rode a motor-scooter home from her job in hotel management in 2013, and then spent 28 days in a coma. Her spleen was ruptured and had to be removed; worse still, the severe blood loss caused a shock that led to permanent kidney failure.

(Published: February 2016)

Jaqueline, who also suffered numerous broken bones and a cerebral hemorrhage, had to undergo more than 10 operations at HELIOS Hospital Hildesheim, near Hanover in Germany. In total, she spent about half a year in the hospital.

But while her bones eventually healed, Jaqueline has needed dialysis since the accident to replace her kidney function. Three times a week, for four hours each time, she is connected to a dialysis machine that pumps her blood through a specialized filter – a dialyzer – to remove toxins.

These regular dialysis sessions not only drain a patient’s strength, but cause hormonal changes that affect ovulation. For this reason, the vast majority of women on dialysis cannot conceive. “Only about 1 percent of female patients of child-bearing age will be able to get pregnant,” explained Dr. Burkhard Kreft, Chief Physician of the Nephrology and Dialysis Clinic at HELIOS Hospital Hildesheim. “And even when dialysis patients do manage to get pregnant, about two-thirds of them will lose the child. For Ms. Sinicyn to get pregnant the natural way was very unusual. That made us all the more happy when this sweet, healthy baby was born.”

The challenging situation for dialysis patients who want to have a baby was confirmed by Professor Bernard Canaud, Chief Medical Officer of Fresenius Medical Care, the world’s largest provider of renal care. “Worldwide, only a few hundred cases have been reported of dialysis patients who were able to deliver a live birth despite prematurity, low birth weight and other related health issues,” said Prof. Canaud.

It was not an easy pregnancy for Jaqueline – and was a challenging one for her doctors. Since pregnancies among dialysis patients are so rare, the doctors had little specialist literature outlining other specialists’ experiences. And as taxing as dialysis can be for the patient, it is even more so for the unborn baby. To avoid complications, the frequency of Jaqueline’s treatments had to be doubled at certain times: in order to prevent her urea level from rising to a point that would be potentially hazardous to the fetus, she had to undergo as many as six, four-hour dialysis sessions weekly instead of the usual three.

The big day finally arrived – two months early. After a delivery by Cesarean section in HELIOS Hospital Hildesheim, the newborn Angelique – only 41 centimeters (16 inches) in length and weighing just 1,230 grams (2.7 lbs.) – was rushed to the ward for premature babies. In an incubator, she was attached to a respirator and fed through a stomach tube.

“We visited her every day and spent as much time as possible by her side,” said proud father Evgeny. Finally, two months after the birth, the day finally came when he and Jaqueline could take Angelique home with them. She had doubled in weight, and could now be fed from a bottle.

“We are really happy and grateful that the little one is doing so well,” Jaqueline said. “We’re happy just to be a completely normal family, and loving the time together.”

Pictures: © HELIOS Hospital Hildesheim and Kai Kapitän

Privatize a hospital? Anyone wanting to do that needs not only a good concept, but also strong nerves. Resistance in the general population and among employees can be enormous.

(Published: June 2015)

This was the case in the German city of Krefeld when Fresenius Helios acquired the money-losing municipal hospital, Klinikum Krefeld. Initially, there were a lot of preconceptions and fear.

“We demonstrated against it because we wanted our hospital to remain municipal,” recalled Birgit Gillmann, head nurse in the Department of Radiology and Palliative Medicine at the hospital, which is now HELIOS Hospital Krefeld. “We thought they would cut jobs and fire us and we’d no longer be able to care for our patients; we thought it was only about profit. But, fortunately, it turned out to be exactly the opposite.”

HELIOS decided to tear down the old building. Putting up a new one took five years. More than €200 million was invested by HELIOS in the modernization. “We have a magnificent new building, working conditions are excellent and our patients and employees feel very well taken care of,” said Gillman with relief. The hospital now offers more jobs than it did when it was publicly owned. In those days it was close to insolvency: There was only enough money on hand to pay employees for another three months.

“Some people in this city used to carry notes saying, ‘In case of emergency, don’t take me to Klinikum Krefeld. Anywhere but there,’” said Reiner Micholka, Managing Director of HELIOS Hospital Krefeld, about the time before privatization. Since then the hospital’s reputation has improved enormously – also among its employees.

“Before, I didn’t know the managers personally,” said Gillmann about this welcome change. “They were all busy in their offices. I didn’t know how to approach them, and they never came to see us. They never visited the wards or came around to inspect anything. Now, that’s all changed. Suddenly the managers are there, and want to look around. I was quite surprised that they already knew our names. Not only that, but it’s more enjoyable to work for a company that isn’t running at a loss and that isn’t about to close down – a company that’s profitable.” Mayor Gregor Kathstede of Krefeld is also happy about the benefits of the privatization. “It was clear to me that I’d have to push through this idea in Krefeld,” he said. “It took a lot of energy and a little time – but it was the right decision.”

There’s not much conversation in the locker room at 6:30 a.m., as the six women change into the blue uniforms worn on the Intensive Care Unit. The handover from their overnight colleagues proceeds quietly — it was an uneventful night. But the day ahead? On the ICU, it’s impossible to know.

(Published: March 2015)

ICU head nurse Mandy Stockmann is busy handing out assignments. “When possible, we team up the less experienced people with the veterans,” she says. By any standard, Stockmann is a veteran: she has been heading the 67-member ICU nursing team at Fresenius Helios Hospital Bad Saarow, just east of Berlin, since she was 26.

Each member of the Bad Saarow ICU team is trained to deal with the life-threatening emergencies that can strike the ICU’s critically ill patients at any time. Many have just had major surgery or have advanced pneumonia. Others have suffered a serious heart attack or stroke, or devastating brain or internal injuries.

“We treat every patient like they were our own mother or father.”

Stockmann turns to hurry “downtown” — the English name the nurses have given the busy central corridor running between the ICU unit’s two wings, with their total of 36 beds. Downtown is where the doctors and nurses gather for their “morning rounds” to see the patients. The beeping of sophisticated medical equipment deployed throughout the ICU, along with the hoses, cables and flashing monitors — it can all seem daunting. For the ICU patients surrounded by — and often attached to — these life-saving machines, it is crucial that they sense the staff’s compassion, and special attention is given to treating them as gently and kindly as possible. “We treat every patient like they were our own mother or father,” says the head of the ICU, Dr. Uli-Ruediger Jahn.

“How was your night? Do you have any pain?” Jahn quietly asks a patient. During the morning visit he is highly focused, and expects the same from the staff. “This is the most important time of the day,” Jahn explains. “It’s the only time that the different specialist doctors all come together as a multi-disciplinary team. Everyone really has to listen closely.”

12:30 p.m.: Just after noon, the colleagues gather in Jahn’s office. Their faces etched in concentration, they examine the X-rays of patients as colleagues outside continue to closely monitor patients. The frequent checking of vital signs and medication levels, the carrying out of specially ordered tests such as lung endoscopies, as well as respiration therapy and the various measures needed to support patients’ circulatory systems: these are among the regular duties in the ICU workday.

“Interdisciplinary cooperation takes on a different level of significance in the ICU,” and the nursing staff is on the front line of care, says Dr. Stefan Wirtz, the hospital’s Chief Physician for Anesthesiology, Intensive Care Medicine, Emergency Care Medicine and Pain Therapy. After all, he points out, it is the nurses who spend the most time with the patients, watch over them day and night, and notice even the smallest changes in their condition. “You can only do medicine well when you work in friendly cooperation with your colleagues,” Wirtz adds. “That’s true for doctors and for the nursing staff.

5 p.m.: Another long day ends for Mandy Stockmann at 5 p.m., and she turns to the important business of properly winding down. “Symbolically, it’s important to leave all your private worries in your locker when you start your shift, and then put work problems or your concerns about the patients aside, along with your uniform, at the end of your day,” Stockmann explains. “And I really long for peace and quiet, so I turn the phone off for an hour when I get home.”

The night shift takes over at 10 p.m., with nurse Uwe Bogner as shift leader. This night soon sees him racing over to a nearby station to assist colleagues in helping a very heavy patient back into bed. Then word comes in that a planned emergency operation is being canceled because the patient is too weak, and all the equipment that the staff had brought out and set up for post-surgical care must now be put away. Other nurses, meanwhile, organize things for the day shift, while the physician on call attends to a patient who cannot come to rest; everyone knows that fear and anxiety do most of their visiting at night. The night shift is drawing to a close in the Bad Saarow ICU when Uwe Bogner approaches a patient to clear his throat of fluid that could obstruct breathing. The nurse knows the sedated patient will not be able to answer, but he takes a moment to speak to him all the same. “Good evening, Mr. K,” Bogner says softly. “Hope I didn’t startle you.”

6:30 a.m.: The unit is quiet. Three doors down, Uwe Bogner’s colleagues have arrived for the early shift and are quietly changing into their blue ICU uniforms.

Dr. Uli-Ruediger Jahn has assumed the position of Chief Physician for Anesthesiology, Intensive and Emergency Medicine and Pain Therapy at HELIOS Hospital Uelzen, in northern Germany. The Intensive Care Unit and the clinic for Anesthesiology and Pain Therapy have since become separate specialist departments within HELIOS Hospital Bad Saarow. Dr. Stefan Wirtz is Chief Physician, and Ali Allam is Senior Consultant, in the Intensive Care Unit.

Her first look at Germany on that long-ago morning was not very encouraging. “Everything here looks so gray and dismal,” Florence de Peralta remembers thinking as she landed in Frankfurt back in February 1972. The young nurse was used to the warm temperatures of her native Philippines, not the cold winters of western Europe. But she had taken a decision to pursue a new life, so she got off the plane and started building it.

(Published: August 2015)

Forty-four years later, de Peralta, now 67 and recently retired from HELIOS Hospital Hünfeld, can look back on a successful career at the hospital and the founding and raising of a family in Germany. She’s glad she came, and that she stayed, even if it wasn’t always easy.

When Florence de Peralta arrived along with five other young Philippine nurses assigned to the hospital in Hünfeld, a town of 16,000 people some 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of Frankfurt, Germany was far less multicultural than it is today. The six nurses only came because of an intergovernmental agreement that nurses from the Philippines would work in Germany to help overcome a serious nursing shortage. In total, some 3,000 Philippine nurses came between 1969 and 1973. Thousands of nurses from India and Korea were also recruited during those years.

Today, advance preparation – especially language training – is customary for newcomers to Germany, but in Florence de Peralta’s day it wasn’t thought necessary. She arrived not knowing a word of German but was still expected to start right away at the hospital, “where we communicated with hand signals,” and take language lessons later.

She soon got used to her new country, though, with the help of colleagues and many friendly local people, including some families who helped her settle in and find her way around. “I was given a very warm welcome everywhere, both from the people in Hünfeld and from the colleagues and patients in the hospital,” Florence de Peralta recalls.

Still, Hünfeld is a small town, de Peralta was away from family and friends and living in a country with a very different culture. At times, homesickness was hard to shake. Then, at a gathering of the German-Philippine Association in Mainz, just west of Frankfurt, she bumped into Arsenio, whom she had known before taking her training back home. “He wouldn’t let me go,” she jokes of the man who would become her husband and with whom she has two children, Florian and Jennifer. She and Arsenio even worked together for a time in the Hünfeld hospital.

Florence de Peralta enters retirement with mixed feelings – sorry to say goodbye to work that has given her so much satisfaction, but grateful for the memories, the friends and colleagues, not to mention the many happy years of family life. “Nursing has brought me a lot of pleasure and joy,” Florence de Peralta says. “Having some understanding and sympathy for ill people and looking after them – that has always been my passion.” And for Florence and Arsenio de Peralta, there is still a lot to look forward to – including a long trip back to the country they left behind all those years ago for their new home in Germany.