Hospital “begin” to feel the pressure linked to the outbreak of Covid-19 cases, explained on franceinfo Tuesday, January 4, François Braun, president of Samu-Urgences de France. While the Omicron variant is skyrocketing the number of contaminations, with nearly 300,000 cases in 24 hours on Tuesday, there are more calls to the Samu and hospitalizations, according to the one who is also head of the Emergency Department and of the Samu of the Regional Hospital Center (CHR) of Metz-Thionville. However, “this tsunami […] does not translate completely into hospitalizations “, he congratulated himself.
franceinfo: Do you feel the pressure of this outbreak of contaminations?
Francois Braun: We are starting to feel it in the emergency services, calls to the Samu and hospitalizations which are increasing. However, we are not at all in the situation we experienced – particularly in the Grand-Est – during the first wave, where it was a tsunami of hospitalizations. There, we have indeed a tsunami of contaminations which, fortunately, does not translate completely into hospitalizations.
Are patients’ symptoms the same as in other waves?
The symptoms are basically the same. We’re getting a lot more calls from sick, really sick people, whereas in the first wave we also had a lot of calls from people who were worried with symptoms that didn’t look like this. Fortunately, these are people who do not require hospitalization but, most of the time, rather a consultation or a visit to our general practitioner colleagues.
With seasonal illnesses, such as influenza or bronchiolitis, is this increase in cases increasing the pressure on hospital wards?
This overpressure on the hospital is mixed. It is linked to Covid-19 pathologies and to all non-Covid pathologies, which are important during this period. We also have all the traumatic pathologies. There is no containment. Everything else is therefore also putting a great deal of pressure.
Are your healthcare teams also affected by contamination?
The hospital is running out of steam: it’s not a scoop, we know it. For many reasons, many caregivers left the hospital, exhausted by these successive waves. Indeed, we also have doctors, nurses, orderlies and medical regulation assistants who are sick. Unfortunately, this year, emergency services had to close before this fifth or sixth wave. It then suffices to have a few caregivers sick to the point of not being able to work to completely destabilize the system.