"What?
Ten days!
In the waiting room, a patient jumps up from his chair, tears up his information sheet as he leaves the premises.
“We can't help it,” the nurse stammers helplessly.
You know, it's the same everywhere.
“This Friday, in the capital, the waiting times for test results broke all records.
"Until Thursday, we were doing pretty much but there, things go wrong everywhere, we can no longer follow", breathes Yacine
(Editor's note: the first name has been changed)
, medical biologist.
In some centers, it no longer takes four to six days but ... ten days before knowing if you are positive for Covid.
In Marseille too, faced with a second wave of contamination, the situation sometimes becomes Kafkaesque.
“I went to a lab on August 31 and my results fell on September 10,” says Pauline, 29, who was in contact.
I did not expect that.
"
If France is now the third country in Europe which screens the most, with nearly a million tests per week, "this has however resulted in too long waiting times", the Prime Minister admitted on Friday. 'from the Defense and National Security Council.
Faced with this monster congestion, Jean Castex therefore announced that symptomatic people, contact cases and nursing staff should be received as a priority.
“Some time slots will be dedicated to them and screening tents will be set up,” he promised.
"Everyone will tell us that it is an emergency"
The end of the puzzle?
“This is good news, but how do you apply it?
», Sighs Yacine, unconvinced.
Another problem arises from one solution: "Who will manage the prioritization, the security guards, us?"
“For a few days now, some labs no longer accept those who need a test to travel.
But it remains to manage the "anguished", obsessed with the idea of having the virus.
“Two days ago, a retiree told me:
I am coming because I am a hypochondriac.
Some take the sample several times a week, ”says Yacine.
Not to mention the patients who scour the labs, multiplying the tests in the hope of having one answer before another.
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And of course, there is the aggressiveness of the patients to manage: “They all tell us:
I want my results!
, continues the doctor.
We have a lot of problems, that's why some labs no longer even answer the phone.
"Instead, a recorded message warns the interlocutor:" Please note, we can no longer guarantee the deadlines for rendering results ", as we experience with a medical center, contacted in the 1st district of the capital city.
“Aggression, I understand it!
Even my colleague who was suspicious had to wait ten days.
Today who can follow?
», Clarence, laboratory assistant despairs.
Lionel Barrand, the president of the national union of young biologists, he says he is appalled by the speech of the Prime Minister.
“You have a runny nose, we will tell you, you are going in the priority line and you are not.
Our secretaries will turn into a doctor, a policeman, a carpet merchant who will have to negotiate?
Everyone will tell us:
It's an emergency
, he loses his temper.
It would have needed a prescription from a doctor, that's an objective criterion.
There, we add blur to blur.
"
