To relieve the pressure on public hospitals, private structures are responding.

Across the country, 2,000 resuscitation beds are open to accommodate patients with Covid-19.

A capacity that could double, but not without efforts on the part of caregivers. 

Public and private hospitals are sticking together in the face of the third wave of the Covid-19 epidemic.

An "exemplary" cooperation, believe the director of ARS Ile-de-France, Aurélien Rousseau and the director of AP-HP, Martin Hirsch.

In the Ile-de-France region, 35% of patients in intensive care are currently taken care of by private structures, against 30% during the first wave.

Across the country, 2,000 resuscitation beds are open in private establishments.

The latter say they are ready to release more, if necessary.

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Transfer caregivers

The reception capacity could even be doubled, from 2,000 to 4,000 resuscitation beds, assures Lamine Gharbi, president of the federation of private hospitalization.

But not without effort.

"You should know that this will be done in difficulty," he nevertheless confides.

"All of the medical staff have been tired and under stress for a year."

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One of the solutions, according to him: "That the territories which are less affected can mobilize staff, employees and doctors, to help the affected territories", adds Lamine Gharbi.

A money loss 

Transferring caregivers to the right place, clinics in the Marne, for example, are ready to do it.

But freeing up staff and beds has a counterpart: the massive deprogramming of operations.

This represents a colossal loss of money for private structures, numbering 1,030 in France, but also for the caregivers who work there.

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"When we deprogram in the private sector, it means that there are surgeons who stop working and who no longer have any income. So there is a drop in income for the clinic and for the doctors", explains Bruno Leray, Chairman of the Management Board of the Courlancy Group, which manages 3 private clinics in Reims.

"But above all, we're here to treat patients! So of course we will, and surgeons will accept it."

Doctors will have to quickly decide which interventions to deprogram because the regional health agencies should ask for further reinforcement to relieve public hospitals.

Thursday evening, the number of patients in intensive care stood at 4,709, or 408 patient entries in the last 24 hours.