Yasmina Kattou, edited by Ophélie Artaud
Already saturated in normal times, emergencies are currently facing new difficulties, linked to the Christmas holidays, epidemics and the strike of liberal doctors. Because some patients, who are unable to obtain a consultation with their attending physician, therefore go to the emergency room, which clogs up the services.
School holidays, triple Covid epidemic, flu, bronchiolitis, strike of liberal doctors… Multiple difficulties which turn into an explosive cocktail for emergencies already saturated in normal times. They would even be “oversaturated”, according to Patrick Pelloux, the president of the emergency doctors of France. This is also what Professor Frédéric Adnet, the head of the emergency department of the Avicenne hospital in Bobigny, notes at the microphone of Europe 1.
“A lot of patients come for simple flu symptoms”
“Patients come to see us in the emergency room and tell us that they cannot find an appointment with their doctor or that their doctor is not there. There are doctors who have gone on vacation, others who are on strike… So that increases the proportion of patients who come for simple consultations. For my service at Avicenne hospital, we are normally around 100-110 patients a day and on Monday, we were at 180″, details- he.
“These are patients who come for their chronic pathologies, it can be heart problems, respiratory problems… But there are also a lot of patients who come for simple flu symptoms, fever, body aches… In general, these patients can go to general medicine”, explains the emergency doctor.
Increasingly numerous, these patients participate without necessarily knowing it in the saturation of emergency services. “These are not serious cases, but we now see them much more in the emergency room. If they are not linked to a heavy workload, there are so many of them that it affects all the emergencies in terms of waiting and congestion”, notes Frédéric Adnet at the microphone of Europe 1.