MBut where are the vulnerable patients, those who die by the hundreds every day, with growing indifference? Where are we, with our processions of worries, physical and moral pain, worries, anguish? Where are we in the citizen social system which is supposed to face this serious crisis?
We are a few lines among the tons of numbers and the masses of comments that buzz without stopping. We are clearly absent from the politico-health concerns of the leaders. We are hardly statistics. We are inevitable, our deaths have become acceptable.
We are dialysed, transplanted, suffering from cancer, chronic, rare, mental, autoimmune pathologies, etc. Before the epidemic, we had to live with the already heavy burden of our diseases. Then we were decimated by a virus which for us is appalling, in several ways.
Decreasing number of organ transplants
Who knows that the mortality in the event of Covid-19 of dialysis patients (17%) and transplant (15%) is significantly higher than that of residents in nursing homes (13%), yet much older? Those who survive are not spared by the sequelae and long Covid. The number of organ transplants performed in 2020 was down more than 25% compared to 2019, and 2021 promises to be another dramatic one, involving endless waits with serious consequences.
Who has measured that the Covid-19 tragedy reveals to the world a brutal and deadly telescoping between the coronavirus and obesity? The combined figures of these two epidemics are overwhelming: one in two hospitalizations in the intensive care unit and nearly one in two deaths in hospital concerns people suffering from obesity. After the first confinement, a ministerial letter specified: “These deprograms must be carried out while ensuring that cancer patients must be cared for in the best possible conditions, either in hospital or on an outpatient basis. “
The reality in front of the scale of the epidemic in certain regions leads to deprogram interventions for cancers which would require a passage in intensive care. The right to information is not always respected and the “sorting” of patients does take place between people treated for Covid-19 and others, who no longer benefit from access to care. The number of cancer diagnoses fell 23.3% in 2020 due to the first two lockdowns. The deaths caused by this pandemic will not be limited to those of Covid-19. To this should be added the deaths, over the next few years, of all people deprived of care or diagnosis.
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