At the Tenon hospital in Paris, steps painted on the ground guide infected patients to a pavilion dedicated to the coronavirus. In Avicenne (Seine-Saint-Denis) and Henri-Mondor (Val-de-Marne), screening centers have been set up in outdoor tents. At CHU Pellegrin, in Bordeaux, two wings of twenty beds each are ready to be "armed", they say in jargon. Understand: mobilizable. As for the Hospices Civils de Lyon, they limit all visits to one per day and per patient, regardless of pathology.
Faced with the growing epidemic (372 new cases detected on Tuesday, or 1,784 in total in France) - "We are living in an exceptional crisis", launched Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday - hospitals must play strategically: take care of themselves Coronavirus patients while protecting the (many) others.
“The hospital is repositioning itself in its role!” Exclaims Bruno Lina, doctor in Lyon, specialist in viruses. He is preparing to hand over to the city doctors on the benign forms of coronavirus to be able to correctly receive the most severe, without generating excess mortality. Our resuscitation services are well organized. "
On the side of the Public Assistance-Hospitals of Paris, one assures to be able to gain power. “We have around a hundred beds and can easily go up to 500 in our infectious disease departments, or even 1,500 across the whole of Île-de-France. If there are more patients, we will adapt, "said François Crémieux, deputy director of the institution at 39 establishments, on Friday. At the national level, the Director General of Health, Jérôme Salomon, indicated on Tuesday that the Hexagon "had 5000 beds in intensive care", and underlined the "French flexibility" allowing to adapt the supply of beds in intensive care , depending on the territory.
Dangerous exercise
“Hospital preparation is the heart of the matter. We are not in the same pattern as in the heat wave of 2003, with a dramatic improvisation and 15,000 dead. Things have changed but there is always a risk of saturation, in equipment, beds, negative pressure rooms, exhausted nursing staff. It's a perilous exercise, ”warns health historian Patrick Zylberman.
This Sunday, at our colleagues at La Croix, an Italian doctor was alerting to the dilemma of our neighbor who was badly affected (Editor's note: 168 dead just for Tuesday) : "These last days, we have to choose who to intubate, between a patient 40 and 60, both of whom are at risk of dying. It is excruciating. »Should we fear such a situation in France? “This risk is more than infinitesimal, wants to believe Bruno Lina. Italian triage is a war policy in regions where health facilities are very degraded. This is not our case. "