People wait outside the IHU in Marseille for a Covid-19 test -

Daniel Cole / AP / SIPA

  • Marseille hospitals are facing a sharp increase in the number of intensive care patients with the coronavirus.

  • To avoid saturation, the AP-HM will open 17 new beds in the next two weeks.

"Things continue to progress, step after step, and have been packed these few days", does not hide Professor Dominique Rossi, president of the medical establishment commission of the Assistance Publique Hôpitaux de Marseille (AP-HM).

With an incidence rate of Covid-19 almost four times higher than the national average, the second city in France is facing a particularly virulent coronavirus epidemic, the effects of which are starting to be felt on the capacity to take charge of hospitals.

At the AP-HM, tension is mounting, to the point that its management has decided to open 17 resuscitation and continuous monitoring beds for patients with Covid-19 "in the next fifteen to twenty days", according to terms of Jean-Olivier Arnaud, Chairman of the Management Board of the AP-HM.

"A few days in advance"

For the time being, according to figures communicated this Wednesday morning during a press conference, 111 patients with Covid-19 are hospitalized in Marseille hospitals.

Twenty-four of them are in intensive care and 82 in medical care.

"In our opinion, the maximum capacity of the AP-HM is not reached", reassures Jean-Olivier Arnaud.

And to specify: "The speed of increase of this epidemic in our country is much slower than last spring.

This gives us a few days in advance of the possibility of reacting, at the rate of 2 to 3 beds.

"

Currently, 300 resuscitation beds are available in the Bouches-du-Rhône department, including 120 at the AP-HM.

Of these 300 beds, 78 are occupied by patients with Covid-19, including 53 in Marseille and 26 at the AP-HM.

A dozen patients died from Covid-19 last week at the AP-HM.

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  • Marseilles

  • epidemic

  • Hospital

  • Covid 19

  • Coronavirus