What number of patients should be imagined for the summer of 2024 on the occasion of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (JOP)? How should the Ile-de-France hospital system prepare for this, especially with regard to the staff to be mobilized during a period which is traditionally that of holidays (the Games will take place from July 26 to August 11)? There “modeling of patient flows likely to request the health system” should be “completed in the summer”according to the Court of Auditors.
This should allow“achieve a central scenario on the basis of which the various stakeholders can adapt their organizations” in order to be able to ensure continuity of care, underline the financial magistrates in a report on the preparation of the JOP, which must be submitted to Parliament.
The risks to the workforce of the Ile-de-France hospital system have been noted on several occasions in recent months. “All hypotheses must be seriously anticipated and planned so as not to generate, at the last minute, excessive strain on the staff of hospitals in the region”thus warned, on March 9, the deputy Christine Le Nabour (Renaissance) in her report for opinion on the bill “relating to the JOP of 2024 and containing various other provisions”.
The question of the “acceptability of constraints”
Noting that the Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (AP‑HP) and the Regional Health Agency (ARS) of Île-de-France plan “attendance which does not represent a major change compared to a normal summer”Mme Le Nabour had called for “anticipate less favorable hypotheses” and any reinforcements that may be needed.
There will be “significant tension” in the hospital “due to the period of leave and recruitment difficulties, which tend to increase”added the deputy, specifying that at this stage the ARS considers that “nine hospitals” will be “potentially very impacted” by the Games.
In a first report on the preparation of the JOP, submitted to Parliament at the end of 2022 and made public in January, the Court of Auditors had, for its part, underlined “the need to carry out a coherent planning of medical resources as soon as possible”.
In their new report, the financial magistrates note that the ARS and the AP-HP are “engaged in a proactive preparation process which must be confirmed and concretized by operational planning to be completed by the summer of 2023”.
But they insist on the fact that it will be necessary to work, with the various actors concerned, on the question of “acceptability of constraints”which will go hand in hand with the continuity of care to be provided, namely postponements of leave, overtime, etc.
This acceptability “will be conditioned, internally (staff of the ministry and the ARS), on the support measures that will be implemented and, externally (city medicine, hospitals, etc.), on the capacity of the ministry to convince its interlocutors to get involved in this matter”warns the Court of Auditors.
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