In hospitals, the summer holiday period is notorious for heightening all tensions, but the ridge line on which the emergency services now live seems a little thinner each year. For the past few days, emergency physicians have been increasing alerts and concern is rising a notch as an episode of heat wave hits France from Saturday August 19.
“The situation is more serious than last summer”already the scene of unprecedented tensions, concluded on Tuesday August 15 the president of SAMU-Urgences de France, Marc Noizet, speaking on Europe 1. A finding widely shared among emergency physicians, among whom the lack of staff is glaring. “No territory is spared, all departments are experiencing difficulties, including very touristic areas”details Agnès Ricard-Hibon, spokesperson for the French Society of Emergency Medicine, according to whom the number of services closed has never been so high.
Of the country’s 680 emergency services, including 380 general emergencies in the public sector, five are “completely closed” And “about forty are led to partially close”said the Minister of Health, Aurélien Rousseau, on France Inter Saturday morning.
Difficulties “better anticipated”
In the Var, the first French tourist destination after Paris, the emergency rooms of Draguignan were closed at night for nineteen months for lack of doctors and continue to experience difficulties; those of Saint-Tropez will be closed at night between August 18 and 22. Those of Manosque, in the neighboring department of Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, are also forced to occasional closures. “That’s a lot in the same territory”says Dr. Ricard-Hibon.
In Gironde too, where activity is sustained, “the situation is much more critical than last year”assures Philippe Revel, head of the emergency department of the Bordeaux university hospital center, where about 25% of the workforce of doctors is missing. “We were forced to reduce activity almost every day of the summer, and some services had to close, which had never happened”, he underlines, citing the emergencies of the commune of Sainte-Foy-la-Grande, closed for a month. His conclusion is clear: “We are in a crisis that is not under control. »
Another alarm signal, mobile emergency and resuscitation structures (SMUR) were closed, as in Pays-de-la-Loire on the weekend of August 15. “Before, we preserved the SMURs because they are vital emergencies, now we can’t do it everywhere”deplores Agnès Ricard-Hibon.
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