“We must prepare our health system to face a possible pandemic spread of the virus and therefore to (its) circulation on the national territory. This Saturday, behind her desk, Agnès Buzyn, on the eve of her resignation, looks serious when she says these words, heavy with meaning, to evoke the coronavirus. And for good reason, a pandemic is an XXL version, on a global scale, of an epidemic.
“I myself was surprised to hear him say that, because it does not seem to me that we are at the stage of thinking about a pandemic. The operation is delicate: you have to be ready to deal with all eventualities without sowing panic, ”explains Jean-Paul Hamon.
Like fifty health professionals (hospitals, city doctors, nurse, medical doctor, etc.), the president of the Federation of Doctors of France will be at the Ministry of Health this Tuesday morning, at 10 a.m., for a meeting convened at this meeting. topic. Logically in the presence of the new, newly appointed minister, Olivier Véran.
"Prevention rather than reaction"
Officially baptized “meeting of mobilization of the health system”, it was supposed to be led by the minister in person, who meanwhile declared candidate to lead the LREM list at the town hall of Paris. But beware, it is not because we are preparing for a pandemic that it will happen, the substance of the General Directorate of Health (DGS), which we joined this Sunday, specifies.
“It is a question of being in prevention, rather than in reaction deciphering François Braun, the boss of the Samu. We are used to doing this type of point, this allows all professionals to be at the same level of information and to coordinate during health crises. We can be called catastrophists, but better be ready, just in case… ”
A meeting that comes as Covid-2019, the official name of the coronavirus, has made its first fatal victim in France, an 80-year-old Chinese tourist who has been hospitalized since the end of January at the Parisian hospital Bichat, and that the Screening tests were positive for a twelfth patient in France, this Saturday, a Briton in his fifties who shared the chalet with five other of his compatriots in Contamines-Montjoie (Haute-Savoie).
But how do you prepare for a pandemic? "By implementing all of the prevention and precautionary measures or even by planning the care paths for the sick, depending on the region, without excluding innovative paths", details the DGS, who points out that a system, called Orsan, exists for this type of situation.
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“The most important thing during a pandemic is that the information system is fluid and able to manage without panicking. A pandemic does not mean, for example, that we hospitalize all those concerned, ”remarks François Braun.
"We must remain reassuring"
Doctor Jean-Paul Hamon has already attended this type of preparation meeting for the "worst scenarios", especially during the epidemics of avian flu and H1N1. “We had studied all the hypotheses, including the most extreme, that is to say in the case of closed schools, stationary transport. There were situations with municipal employees in ultra-secure uniforms distributing food. Others, with military protection, pharmacies to avoid the assault on drugs. But of course, we are far, very far, from that with the coronavirus. The point is to say that the more you prepare, the more you are able to manage everything. "
VIDEO. Coronavirus: 80-year-old patient dies in Paris
François Braun confirms: “We have good diagnostic tools, an illness with severe symptoms, but which does not affect everyone. We must remain reassuring. Fortunately, we are preparing for more things than what is actually happening. "