Tatiana Geiselmann (in Strasbourg) / Photo credits: Estelle Ruiz / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP
modified to
12:35 p.m., December 25, 2023
The holiday season is a particularly dreaded time in emergency departments. In Strasbourg, to cope with the influx of patients, the hospital deployed a mobile health unit in its parking lot. This is the first time in France that this type of unit has been used outside of a health crisis or attack.
December 25 is traditionally a busy day for emergencies. In Strasbourg, to cope with the influx of patients, a mobile health unit was deployed this weekend. This is a sort of waiting area where patients are taken care of by firefighters before being able to enter the hospital. This is the first time in France that this type of unit has been used outside of a health crisis or attack.
A first in France, excluding a health crisis or attack
Six prefabricated white blocks have been installed since Friday in the emergency parking lot in Strasbourg. This is now where patients are welcomed, explains Christophe Bernard, doctor responsible for exceptional health situations: “Each cell is made up of a bed with a mattress, we have blood pressure monitoring, saturometer, the idea being to keep in monitoring these patients until they can integrate into the emergency care system.”
Patients are therefore not treated inside the USM. The objective is simply to free the SAMU and fire trucks, which until now had to wait for hours in the parking lot for their patient to be taken care of. “The waiting time for first contact has been estimated at around 40 minutes, but with peaks which can be reached for several hours,” confirms Pascal Bilbault, head of the emergency department.
Around a hundred people admitted to emergency on Sunday
And during the holiday season, the situation gets worse, according to Christophe Bernard. “From a patient influx point of view, since Friday, we have increased by 20% almost every day. It’s true that weekends, holidays, everything adds up, due to the difficulty of access patients to their general practitioners,” he says.
On Sunday alone, more than 1,200 people called the SAMU and more than a hundred were admitted to the emergency room.