Marc Noizet, president of Samu-Urgences, deplores on franceinfo the evils affecting the French hospital, including the emergency crisis. He regrets the bed closures and says there is a lack of specialists, such as anesthesiologists.
“We lack beds to accommodate patients“, indicated on July 24 on franceinfo Marc Noizet, president of Samu-Urgences de France. The new Minister of Health, Aurélien Rousseau, who will meet on July 24 with the other members of the government around Élisabeth Borne to define the next priorities, has many projects ahead of him: medical deserts and the crisis in the emergency services, in particular. observation in his own hospital of this loss of capacity, which is explained by the closing of beds, but also “due to lack of skills“, he explained. Some tourist areas are on the verge of explosion this summer: “Saint-Tropez is truly in very, very great difficulty“, he gave as an example.
franceinfo: Is your hospital once again operating in degraded mode?
Marc Noizet, president of Samu-Emergencies of France: We are unfortunately, and despite the measures that have been taken in recent years, more and more in difficulty in all French hospitals, and in particular because of the demographic crisis that we are encountering and which is hitting hospitals hard. It is the cause of a loss of capacity to accommodate patients by closing beds, but also due to a lack of skills. This is illustrated, on the one hand, by a 15 to 20% closure on the hospital. We lack beds to accommodate patients. And then it is also illustrated by the inability to be able to operate our operating theaters completely normally. We need anesthesiologists. This is also illustrated by specialties that are in great pain due to a lack of doctors. For example, we have an ENT department which had to close nine months ago, because the last ENT patient left us.
Did you have to restrict access to the emergency room?
We did not need to restrict access to the emergency room because we managed to maintain a sufficient number of professionals in the emergency room, both paramedical and medical. This allows us to have normal access. However, we have two other emergency services, because the establishment has three, closures from time to time, linked to shortages of medical personnel over the summer, we will have five or six dates when we will have complete closures of the emergency department.
What is the situation nationally?
It’s a figure that everyone would like to have, but which is very difficult to get because in fact, it changes from one day to the next. 48 hours ago in the department, we had an emergency service which closed one night and one day, which then reopened and which is closed today. On other departments, you will have an access restriction for 48 hours, then normal operation again. It’s constantly moving, so it’s extremely complicated to have a photograph. What is certain is that all the departments are affected in a rather unequal way. We have regions where there are many more difficulties, such as Normandy and the Grand-Est, which are among the regions where we have many emergency services that are affected. Some tourist areas are overly complicated. For example, Saint-Tropez is really in very, very great difficulty and had to put in place a plan for the whole territory to manage to bring in doctors to be able to help them to hold on, knowing that it is a service which multiplies by three its activity in the summer. I will also mention, for example, Les Sables-d’Olonne, an excessively touristic site during the months of July and August. In the same way, it was necessary to bring in doctors, therefore to reorganize the services all around to manage to maintain an open service and a quality of care for the patients.
Is it possible to bring in reinforcements?
Reinforcements are difficult to find because globally, everywhere, it is complicated. So there is currently one that is receiving reinforcements from the health reserve, it is the Mayotte hospital center which has been faced with a very great difficulty in operating due to a lack of emergency doctors.