The director general of the Public Assistance-Hospitals of Paris (AP-HP), Martin Hirsch, affirms in an interview published Saturday by Le Monde that his institution has "never been confronted with a phenomenon of such magnitude" that the coronavirus, but that the hospital teams are "ready". "I think that never, in professional memory, has it been confronted with a phenomenon of such magnitude with such speed and such high complexity," he believes.
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20% of positive tests
"Of the approximately 900 screening tests carried out yesterday in our centers, about 20% were positive," he noted. "There can be an increase in serious cases of 20% to 30% per day", which "would represent 400 patients simultaneously requiring critical care in Île-de-France within ten to fifteen days". To organize and "distribute the means", the AP-HP was inspired by the year 2018 which experienced a great flu epidemic, by "applying the multiplicative factors specific to Covid-19".
While Italy is faced with the obligation to sort patients, "the resuscitators explain that we should not overinterpret decisions that they already make outside of crisis period, such as not initiating heavy resuscitation on patients whose prognosis is immediately unfavorable, "argues Martin Hirsch. At the AP-HP, "there are 1,500 critical care beds. Naturally, in normal times, 90% are occupied", he said, adding that on Friday already 44% of non-emergency operations were deprogrammed. These deprogramming do not concern the operations planned for people suffering from cancer or awaiting a transplant, and "probably not" pediatrics.
56 caregivers infected
"Several thousand nurses at the end of the course" are "mobilizable" and "nearly 4,000 caregivers of all specialties, retired for less than five years, have been or will be called," said Martin Hirsch, estimating that in this "400 to 600" pool could agree to come in for reinforcement. "It would be a lie to pretend that we are tackling this epidemic in the best conditions. All the difficulties that existed and that we recognized before the spread of this virus have not been magically erased. Nobody forgets them." But "if you ask me if the AP-HP teams are ready, I don't hesitate to say yes".
Regarding staff contamination, Martin Hirsch said that "56 caregivers were infected" and that "the majority appear to have been infected outside the hospital".