This is a testimony that arrived at the editorial staff of France Blue Perigord Tuesday morning. The granddaughter of a 99-year-old woman assures that her grandmother stayed for 30 hours in the emergency room of the Périgueux Hospital Center. She had fallen at home, with an open wound on her tibia and a broken ankle: “She stayed from Sunday morning to Monday afternoon on a stretcher, in an emergency room corridor. They obviously had nothing to eat, except compotes”says Delphine.
More absent caregivers, fewer beds
“We can have quite significant delays to find downstream beds from the emergency room”, recognizes Stéphanie Jonas, the crisis director of the Hospital Center. The reason ? “We have an extremely heavy absenteeism of caregivers in all structures”. Heavy, and even record. It’s the “worse” since the start of the coronavirus epidemic, according to her. The fault of the Omicron variant, which causes fewer serious forms, but more contamination.
We have absenteeism among professionals which is extremely heavy, so structures have had to close beds, it is difficult to find a bed for a patient from the emergency room
– Stéphanie Jonas, crisis director at the Périgueux hospital
There are more caregivers on leave than during previous waves in the Dordogne. And therefore, more closed beds. At the same time, the hospital is experiencing a sharp increase in the number of visits to the emergency room. 140 passages per day, with peaks at 160, compared to 115 on average in normal times. For patients who have to be hospitalized like Delphine’s grandmother, things get stuck.
No short-term solutions for the hospital
The 99-year-old lady ended up getting a place in geriatrics at Sarlat hospital, 70 km from her home in Trélissac. The management ensures that it does everything to remedy the absences. She is already asking all carers who volunteer to work overtime. She calls on student nurses to lend a hand. And she tries to recruit. But it does not necessarily find candidates, even for interims.