While the deconfinement is preparing, the fear of a new wave of contamination with the coronavirus is weighing a lead screed on the hospital, already severely tested by the epidemic. If "the situation improves", there is nothing to declare victory for Gabriel Steg, co-chairman of the special Covid steering committee within the AP-HP and head of the cardiology department at the hospital Bichat. For this professor at Paris Diderot University, the saturation of the beds is still topical since "the resuscitations are even fuller than full".
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"We have not yet returned to a normal situation at all," he laments at the microphone of Patrick Cohen on Europe 1, fearing that a second wave of Covid-19 will strike France a few times after the deconfinement. He wants to alert: "If we have to have a new wave, we are dead. We are in a sort of in-between now, we are preparing in case we should welcome a second wave but I think that if it occurs, the hospital is going to be in very big trouble. "
"The hospital owes a lot to the doctors"
Saluting the "superhuman" work of caregivers in the front line services in the fight against the coronavirus, he recalls: "There were moments of solidarity, it was a pretty incredible transformation, but we cannot have exploits like that all the time. "
"I also think that we will have to learn a lot from the way the hospital has managed this crisis," continues Gabriel Steg. "What struck everyone was how committed the doctors were. In a way, they took back power in the hospital and I think the hospital owes them a lot. crisis cells were administrative cells and doctors, everyone played the game. I must say that I attended some meetings and I was extremely impressed by these people, present 24 / 24h, to manage as in a war cabinet. We owe them a lot, "he added, also stressing the mobilization" of city carers who worked a lot and who were also not protected ".
"It was really a very difficult moment that we went through, I hope we will not have a new wave of the same magnitude. If we were to have new cases, I hope it will be less, and Spread over time. Because the more it is picked up, the more it will be difficult to manage and I think that we can find ourselves in very great difficulty ", he concludes.
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The return to hospital of patients suffering from other pathologies
Especially since the hospital will also have to face the return of patients suffering from other pathologies than Covid-19, and who deserted the premises during the epidemic. A "very strong decrease in the number of patients with other pathologies" was thus observed. "We have done surveys in France and abroad which show that there has been an absolutely phenomenal reduction in myocardial infarction, cerebrovascular accidents ..."
"But this is not a real decrease," warns Gabriel Steg. "These are people who probably did not consult, or later, perhaps because they were afraid of coming to the hospital," said the department head. He says he is very worried after having already seen more serious forms than usual in these patients. According to him, the after will also be the time to measure "the impact, in terms of morbidity and mortality [cumulative morbidity and mortality, Editor's note], on patients who do not have Covid-19 but have not could be treated, or who did not consult. "