Bronchiolitis, flu, Covid-19, holidays… The hospital in overstretch on Christmas Eve
“This morning, there were sick people in the corridors of Rangueil and Purpan. There is also a great tension in the UAS, with a 20 to 30% increase in calls even though we have not yet entered the flu epidemic. » Professor Sandrine Charpentier, head of the “emergency medicine” unit at the Toulouse University Hospitaldoes not hide his concern on the eve of the Christmas school holidays, when part of the doctors’ surgeries will close in the coming days.
While usually 300 to 350 patients are taken care of every day in adult emergencies, today there are nearly 400 who franchise the care establishment. With a return of Covid-19 casesespecially in the elderly.
“We are at more than 50 Covid-19 patients on geriatric services, which makes 40 to 50% of geriatric hospitalized patients. It’s not like the first waves when it was the Covid-19 that caused patients to be hospitalized. There it’s like the flu, they decompensate their chronic pathology. That’s it now, the Covid-19 disease, it’s not the known respiratory ones that we have known, “says the practitioner.
Emergency room closures in private clinics
This upsurge, combined with other viral pathologies, such as the flu or bronchiolitis, leads to saturation of services and real tension. Especially since the Toulouse University Hospital has recently had to deal with an increase in the absenteeism of its staff, also affected by viruses and which has seen the reappearance of clusters.
Not to mention the closure of emergency services of private clinics in the sector, such as that of L’Union this Friday evening, also faced with these problems. “This is also what happened last weekend with the closure of the emergencies of Ambroise Paré, in fact, they were transferred to the CHU”, continues the emergency manager, who “launches an appeal to all the partners to remain mobilized”.
To cope, a crisis cell was opened a fortnight ago, in order to free up the places that can be. “On average, there are 60 patients a day who resist hospitalization at the Toulouse University Hospital. We organized ourselves to try to free up space, but we have been in tension for three consecutive days. We also have induced bed closures, which are the same every year as part of the holidays, ”underlines Béatrice Riu, head of intensive care at the CHU, who indicates that the caregivers, who have been in great demand in recent months, will not be called back. .
Call for accountability to patients
A system already seized up to which are added the disturbances also recorded at the level of patient transport companies, which do not escape the cases of Covid-19, and which delay the exit of patients and therefore the release of beds.
A call for “good practices” is therefore launched for patients, but also for parents. Because if adult emergencies are on the verge of explosion, this is also the case with pediatrics where bronchiolitis, coupled with the flu, is wreaking havoc.
The level 1 plan of the white plan was therefore put into service in paediatrics. “It is a way of alerting the population and city medicine to the very high tension to which we are subject, so as to limit the places in the hospital for children who are not essential”, insists Isabelle Oliver- Petit, a doctor at the children’s hospital who had anticipated the wave of bronchiolitis by opening nearly 40 additional beds a month ago. All already occupied, in particular by infants under six months, without any underlying pathology, very affected this year by the virus. “So, during this Christmas period, the best gift we can give to these children is to avoid multiple contacts, even with family, and to apply barrier gestures”, insists this pediatrician.