Joël
(all first names have been changed)
will long remember the last phone call made by his uncle.
On the phone, Pierre thought that for him, it would be fine, but he was making ink blood for Bernadette, his wife, to whom he had transmitted the Covid.
A few days later, the health of the 82-year-old Bourguignon deteriorated sharply.
“Uncle died that night,” Joël learned when he woke up from his parents.
On February 9, the former house painter did not die from the prostate tumor he had just had surgery on.
It was the coronavirus, contracted during his stay in the hospital, which took him.
According to Public Health France, between January 2020 and February 14, more than 44,400 "hospital" cases were identified, affecting some 26,800 patients, of which 186 died.
Figures that make Covid the first nosocomial disease (a pathology contracted in hospital) in France.
"Who did he catch it by?"
We will never know: another patient, a nurse, a doctor ... we just know that it was in the establishment, where he was admitted with a negative PCR test, ”notes Joël.
According to the health agency, 57% of contaminations come from patients, 34% from caregivers, 6% from a visitor.
His contaminated wife, his son too
It was not in his secluded hamlet in the Burgundy countryside, where he was born and settled again to take advantage of retirement, that Pierre was risking much.
For a year, he had been sealed there with Bernadette, only receiving Christophe, the youngest of their two sons, with the mask.
A united couple who had celebrated their sixty years of marriage two summers earlier.
And then there was that lump in the prostate.
An operation is decided, it will take place at the Pitié-Salpêtrière, in Paris, in November.
“Except that it fell in full epidemic peak of the second wave, raises Joël.
The intervention was deprogrammed.
“It will finally take place at the end of January in Burgundy, closer to the home of the gardening and DIY enthusiast.
READ ALSO>
Vaccines against Covid: pressure on reluctant caregivers
"Everything went well, it was a trivial act, resumes the nephew, but two or three days after his release, he began not to be very well" The screening is final: the Sars-CoV-2 lodged in her lungs, then in those of Bernadette.
It is together that the spouses are admitted to the infectious disease department.
“Bernadette was the worse off of the two, we were very worried,” breathes Joël.
It is in his hospital room that his two sons will come to announce the loss of the man of his life.
Morning essentials newsletter
A tour of the news to start the day
Subscribe to the newsletterAll newsletters
“We are confused.
Of course, we know that a nosocomial infection can happen in hospital, but we never would have imagined this link with the Covid.
»At the funeral, nothing was spared the family, the heavy rain, the dripping masks, the mist on the glasses, the inability to touch each other, the fear of being the next infected ...
For France Assos santé, the vaccination of caregivers must be made compulsory
“Nosocomial Covid is a real concern, the figures are staggering.
But when we know that only 30% of caregivers are vaccinated, they are no longer surprising, ”says Gérard Raymond, president of France Assos Santé, which brings together 85 associations of health users.
He goes straight to it: "We call on the government to make the vaccination of health professionals compulsory," he tells us, in the midst of preparing a letter to this effect.
READ ALSO>
Gabriel Attal facing our readers: "Compulsory vaccination for caregivers remains a possibility"
Pierre's family, still in shock and sadness, did not "ask for anything", had no accounts to settle and therefore did not wish to give the name of the hospital structure.
But if she testifies, through the voice of Joël, it is precisely to alert on the immunization of caregivers.
“I find it scandalous that some people shun a vaccine, out of fantasy or ideology.
We are almost in the begueulery, annoys the quadra.
This reluctance turns care into danger.
The consequences, as we have seen, can be extremely serious for entire families.
Ironically, Pierre, largely eligible because of his 82 spring, wanted to be immunized.
But he did not get an appointment to receive the injection on time.
