In a letter addressed to the President of the National Assembly Richard Ferrand whoseAFP became aware on Wednesday July 1, 2020, Martin Hirsch, director of the AP-HP, says that the comments made by the Professor Raoult facing MPs from the Covid-19 Crisis Management Commission of Inquiry may "akin to false testimony". "It seems essential to me (…) that the work of the committee cannot be based on factually false elements, and that the necessary follow-up can be given. ", he wrote in his letter. Two passages from the infectiologist's statement are particularly targeted. One deals with estimation of death rates of patients in intensive care, and the other concerns an 80-year-old Chinese patient hospitalized in Paris at the end of January and died in mid-February (it was the first Covid-19 death recorded in Europe).
A battle of numbers
In his statement, the fervent defender of hydroxychloroquine had mentioned mortality rates in hospitals, saying he relied on "a work" available online. "The mortality in the resuscitation here, in this work always, is 43%. With us, it is 16% ", he said. "Care has gone into the background ", he added. Figures formally challenged by Martin Hirsch, who denies having any "data which puts mortality at 43% in AP-HP resuscitations ". Contacted byAFP, Pr Raoult's entourage cited results from the Reva register (European research network in artificial ventilation) contained in a "AP-HP crisis cell report of April 14, 2020." In this document, the percentage of deaths in intensive care was then evaluated at 43% at the AP-HP and 41% outside the AP-HP. The same source also quotes an interview with Pr Éric Caumes, head of the infectious and tropical diseases department at the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital (AP-HP), given on LCI June 24, 2020, in which he states that the death rate for intensive care patients in Paris is "around 40%. But for Marseille, I have absolutely no idea ", he adds.
Regarding the 80-year-old Chinese patient, Didier Raoult stated that he had first been admitted to La Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital in Paris, then that he "had gone home", to come back "seven days after" for "die in a hospital. " Martin Hirsch takes issue with these claims. "The only 80-year-old Chinese patient to which Professor Didier Raoult may refer was admitted on January 25, 2020 at the Georges-Pompidou European Hospital. He was never sent home, he specifies in his letter, before recalling that he was subsequently transferred to "Bichat hospital, national reference center", where her daughter, also ill, was treated until she recovered.
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