The wave of Covid is contributing to a context of “triple epidemic” which is testing the health system. It is added to the flu and bronchiolitis.
SourceAFP
© CHRISTOPHE PETIT TESSON / EPA
Published on
– Modified
Lhe Minister of Health, François Braun, spoke on Thursday evening of a “critical situation in the health system” due to the triple winter epidemic of Covid-19, bronchiolitis and influenza, which weighs on emergency services. “saturated”. “Our health system is particularly in tension at the moment, with the Samu who have an increase of 30 to 40% in the number of calls”, noted the minister in front of journalists.
François Braun paid a night visit to the Samu de Paris, based at the Necker hospital, before going to the Delafontaine hospital in Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis), in order to provide government support for all the mobilized teams. Noting that “the emergency services are also saturated, with hospitalization difficulties”, the Minister pointed to a “situation […] critical at the level of the health system”. “Everyone is mobilizing in a kind of sacred union which is remarkable”, he greeted, predicting an “even more complicated situation next week”. “We have an extremely difficult course to pass,” he noted.
A “comprehensive” reform in January
Pointed to a slowdown at the national level, but not in all regions, the wave of Covid is contributing to a context of “triple epidemic” which is testing the health system. It is in addition to the flu, the epidemic of which extends throughout the metropolis, and to bronchiolitis, which has reached record levels for more than ten years in infants despite a recent lull. A group of more than 5,000 doctors, caregivers and hospital workers called on the executive on Wednesday to act “urgently” in the face of a public hospital “in the process of cracking and soon collapsing”, unable, according to them, to “cushion the slightest health crisis”.
READ ALSOChristmas under Covid: commotion with the family
François Braun promised Thursday evening that he would begin “from the month of January the global reform of our health system, territory by territory”, at the end of the work of the National Council for Refoundation (CNR). “I thank all the professionals and I tell them that we are mobilized and that we are going to take the health system head on to reform it”, he assured.