covid
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At the Robert-Ballanger hospital, where the delta variant “continues to fill the beds”, the seriously ill with Covid are mostly unvaccinated. After nearly two years punctuated by the pandemic, caregivers are exhausted.
Room number 4, a red light flashes. Above the beeps of the machines, a voice: “You have to call the family.” This Wednesday, shortly after 10 a.m., this sixty-year-old Covid patient died in the intensive care unit of the Robert-Ballanger hospital, in Aulnay-sous-Bois. His relatives were unable to arrive in time to say goodbye. “He was young” slips Alexandre Avenel, white blouse on his broad shoulders, eyes turned towards his motionless body. “For us, the numbers we hear daily on television are faces, people we take care of for days and nights,” continues the intensive care doctor in his forties.
The name of this man is added to those of the more than 126,000 people killed by Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic in France. Immediately, nurses and orderlies got busy: the sheets had to be removed, the machines unplugged and everything disinfected. The room must be emptied as soon as possible to accommodate another patient. In this Seine-Saint-Denis hospital, all departments combined, there were 89 Covid patients on January 10. Probably a little more today. Among them, nine are treated in the intensive care unit. Those who are between life…