“There are five patients who have been there for more than 24 hours. There is one who has been there for 100 hours, more than four days in the emergency room”. Éric Batard is no longer even surprised, but rather disillusioned. The head of the emergency department of the Nantes University Hospital no longer sees patients passing through his department, he especially sees them staying longer and longer. “Last week, there was a patient who stayed eight days,” he says.
“This is a subject that has been gradually deteriorating for years”
In question, the lack of beds which delays any hospitalization in stride. A situation far from unprecedented. “This is a subject that has been gradually deteriorating for years,” says Éric Batard. But this congestion begins as soon as you access the emergency room or too many people rush there without presenting serious or vital pathologies.
Visiting Nantes this morning, the Minister of Health, François Braun, recalled the importance of the regulation of Samu as the first filter. “This regulation, it does not bring a degradation of care as I can hear, but on the contrary it brings a better orientation of patients according to needs”, he explained.
71,000 calls in July
The problem is that this incentive to dial 15 or 116-117 before coming to the emergency room causes a real traffic jam at the call center. “Any patient who comes under general medicine should call 116-117 and 15 for emergencies. But the problem is that the Samu has its head under water, because the number of calls has increased considerably there too”, concedes Éric Batard.
For the month of July alone, 71,000 calls were received at the regulation in Nantes, with an average wait of four hours.