The director general of the Public Assistance-Hospitals of Paris (AP-HP), Martin Hirsch, affirms in an interview published this Saturday March 14 by Le Monde that his institution has " never been confronted with a phenomenon of such magnitude ”than coronavirus, but that hospital teams are“ ready ”.
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" I think that never, in professional memory, has it been faced with a phenomenon of such magnitude with such speed and such high complexity, " he believes. " Of the approximately 900 screening tests carried out yesterday in our centers, about 20% were positive, " he noted. " There may be an increase in severe cases of 20% to 30% per day ", which "would represent 400 patients simultaneously requiring critical care in Île-de-France within ten to fifteen days ".
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Deprogrammed operations
To organize and “ distribute the means ”, the AP-HP was inspired by the year 2018 which experienced a great flu epidemic, by “ applying the multiplicative factors specific to Covid-19 ”.
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While Italy is faced with the obligation to sort patients, "the resuscitators explain that we should not overinterpret decisions they already make outside of crisis period , such as not initiating heavy resuscitation on patients whose prognosis is immediately unfavorable ”, argues Martin Hirsch.
At the AP-HP, "there are 1,500 critical care beds. Naturally, in normal times, 90% are occupied, " he said, adding that on Friday 13 February, already 44% of operations non-urgent were deprogrammed. These deprograms do not concern the operations planned for people suffering from cancer or awaiting a transplant, and " probably not " pediatrics.
"The AP-HP teams are ready"
" Several thousand nurses at the end of the course " are " mobilizable " and " nearly 4000 caregivers of all specialties, retired for less than five years, have been or will be called, " he said, saying that in this pool " 400 to 600 " could agree to come as reinforcements.
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“ It would be a lie to pretend that we are tackling this epidemic in the best conditions. All the difficulties that existed and that we recognized before the spread of this virus have not been magically cleared. Nobody forgets them ”. But " if you ask me if the AP-HP teams are ready, I don't hesitate to say yes ".
Regarding staff contamination, the director indicated that " 56 caregivers were contaminated " and that " the majority seem to have been contaminated outside the hospital ".