one night in Marseille

Of the 20 beds in the sheave department of the Nord hospital in Marseille, 10 are occupied by cases of Covid-19. “For us, it’s relatively a lot because we do traumatology on the side. It’s almost unique in history, eh, to have a general intensive care unit where there is a single type of infection that occupies so many beds“, explains Pr Marc Leone, the head of department.

Among the patients in the service, a patient who suffered a casarean section and who is in respiratory distress. Doctors gave him extracorporeal membrane oxygenation commonly called ECMO. This extracorporeal circulation technique is the last step in trying to save this patient. As Professor Marc Leone reminds us, the patient mortality rate at this stage is 70%. “Personally, I knew this patient, she was conscious, she made efforts to go to the chair, to try to get better. And it’s true that, it’s quite sad to think that she was asleep, that she probably didn’t see her child after the cesarean“, says a member of the team.

Not all patients in the ward have been vaccinated. “There is a part of the team which is very tolerant, there is another part of the team which is less tolerant, which believes that people should have been vaccinated and it is true that it creates a little feeling misunderstanding since there is a method to protect themselves and people have not used it“, explains the head of the service, specifying nevertheless that the patients are treated without the slightest discrimination. “It’s a debate on the outside which is very very marked, but which inside is not very, very significant, because we are treating trauma victims who have not put on their belts, bikers who have not not put on their helmet, and finally there is no judgment“, he adds.