Emergencies: lack of staff, lack of beds... summer promises to be "hot" at the hospital

Yasmina Kattou, edited by Mélanie Faure 9:46 a.m., May 23, 2022

In hospitals, the disruption of access to care is felt.

Hospitals are understaffed and running out of beds.

The situation could become critical by this summer.

Because 20% of emergency services in France are already experiencing serious difficulties and among them, half represent the largest university hospitals in France.

According to Samu, Emergencies of France, no department is spared.

At the hospital in Creil, in the Oise, the staff is worried.

"We will not be able to hold on", confides a doctor in the emergency room.

"We will find ourselves in situations of danger for patients because we must not imagine that we will do the same quality of work with a single doctor where two are needed."

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"We fear the worst for this summer"

In Rennes, the CHU will not be able to accommodate everyone.

Louis Soula, head of emergencies and Samu, is sounding the alarm.

"We want to filter this access to emergencies. The patient presents to an emergency service. A regulation procedure is put in place to possibly redirect this patient to an appropriate offer."

No closure planned at the Avicenne hospital in Bobigny, in Seine-Saint-Denis.

Christophe Prudhomme, emergency doctor, describes a critical situation that risks getting worse.

"We call this stretcher hospitalizations and it is the patients who monitor each other. Fortunately, sometimes it is a patient who calls for someone who is on a stretcher on one side, who is not doing so well and we can react. We fear the worst for this summer when it will still be necessary for the staff to take a minimum of vacation.

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The worst would be that these patients die because of too long a wait, for lack of personnel.