INTERVIEW
In Seine-Saint-Denis, a department among the most affected by Covid-19 for a month and a half, the number of hospitalizations has been decreasing since Monday. A slight improvement to put in perspective compared to the number of deaths which continues to increase, with 587 deaths since the start of the coronavirus epidemic. For Professor Frédéric Adnet, head of emergency at the Avicenne hospital in Bobigny and guest of Europe 1 on Thursday, the congestion in the intensive care units will be felt in a few days.
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"We are blowing, because the emergencies are welcoming fewer and fewer patients victims of Covid-19", welcomes the man who is also head of the Samu of Seine-Saint-Denis, at the microphone of Mélanie Gomez in Sans Rendez-vous . "We have a decrease in emergency room visits: fewer sick patients present and patients are afraid to go to the hospital because they are afraid of catching the virus, so we also have less "classic emergencies that we saw before the epidemic. These two phenomena combined that we have fewer emergency patients."
"We are at + 70% of our activity"
Sign positive, "in Samu, the number of calls related to Covid-19 decreases in a significant way", observes professor Adnet. "We find a normal situation for an epidemic, we are at + 70% of our activity, which is bearable. We needed to breathe."
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For the time being, resuscitation services remain heavily congested in Seine-Saint-Denis, a department "with an extremely young population, with jobs that cannot be practiced in teleworking".
How can we explain that the situation is improving in the emergency room and in the emergency services, but not yet in the intensive care units? "The Samu is ahead of the emergencies and the emergencies are ahead of the resuscitation", explains the chief of Samu 93. "What we are currently experiencing in the emergencies and in Samu, resuscitation, which is the destination final, will live it in 8 days. Currently, there is a small drop in the number of patients, we have a few beds available, but the situation is still very tense, linked to the fact that the patients remain in intensive care for a long time, between 10 and 15 days."
Concern for people at risk
At the microphone of Europe 1, Professor Frédéric Adnet affirms that there are "gradually more and more beds available", in the intensive care units of his department: "We have transformed eight intensive care beds to accommodate Covid + patients in Covid- intensive care, to hospitalize patients with non-virus related failure. "
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But in a territory where many dwellings are occupied by large families, concludes Frédéric Adnet, "people at risk, socially vulnerable patients and very elderly patients are always a great source of concern with significant mortality".