à Bordeaux, “on est tous à bout “
Faced with the triple epidemic of influenza, Covid and bronchiolitis, the health system is cracking up on all sides. Caregivers prefer as much as patients. Strike calls are increasing, emergency reorganizations are no longer enough.
In this medical center, located in Lormont, near Bordeaux, five patients present themselves as soon as they open. You don’t need an appointment here. In the waiting room, patients who have not managed to get their doctor or who have been turned away by overwhelmed emergencies.
It was crowded. There was a lack of staff. There was only one doctor on duty for the whole day. It was really alarming.
Doctor Abdallah Achouri says he understands his colleagues. It complements and sometimes takes care of patients sent by the emergency department of the private clinic just opposite.
We try to adapt to the flow, to meet the needs of the situation
Doctor Abdallah Achouri, General Practitioner
But the health system must deal with a triple epidemic. The pliers first. Health Minister François Braun spoke this morning of “an explosion of cases, also with serious cases, which mean that the resuscitation services in a global way are saturated“. The Covid virus”circulates less“but the infection level of bronchiolitis is”very high“, he explained to the press. The Minister of Health does not hide his concern : “it’s the week of all dangers”. Especially since the Doctors for tomorrow group call general practitioners to close their surgeries all week.
In Bordeaux, the CHU has opened a modular room to do a first sorting. The white plan, authorized at the end of October, is no longer enough.
In the pediatric intensive care unit, the Sud Santé union calls for an indefinite strike.
The symptoms are the same at the southern Gironde hospital center, which has been reorganizing its emergencies since Monday, December 26. It must be sent by 15 to be received during the day. In a press release, the director notes that the tensions are such that “the usual levers such as temporary work and the internal reorganization of departments are not enough to relieve the teams in place”
Hospitals that lack staff and beds, general practitioners who demand in particular an increase in their fees. The entire healthcare system is now under strain. The triple epidemic raises a more structural problem:
These are all the same demands that have been on the table for twenty years. At some point we are at the end of the day. We have the impression that we are not heard in city medicine. This is not to criticize public medicine. Everyone is in trouble and everyone is cracking up.
Doctor Karl Moliexe Spokesperson SOS Doctors Bordeaux
Guest of the France 3 Aquitaine newspaper, Benoît Elleboode, the director general of the regional health agency rejected the risk of implosion:
Today, the health system is stretched in New Aquitaine but it is not yet saturated.
Benoît Elleboode, Director General of ARS Nouvelle-Aquitaine
It is based on three indicators.
- The number of emergency room visits which he says is about the same as in previous years
- the number of beds available in the order of 10% but not asked where is the need, hence the transfers from one hospital to another and “extremely tense bed management”
- calls to the Samu
On a big increase, +20% in the number of calls. So we have to thank the Samu.
Benoît Elleboode, Director General of ARS Nouvelle-Aquitaine
New Year’s weekend is traditionally a peak for emergencies. The workforce of SOS Médecins in the Bordeaux conurbation will be multiplied by three.