As the night of December 31 approaches, concern is growing in hospital emergency departments, which are often understaffed. It must be said that the evening is particularly conducive to accidents, at the moment, for example, the opening of oysters or lighting firecrackers of New Year's Eve, or because of the alcohol when it 's is to take the wheel.
In recent weeks, staff from several institutions in the Paris region went on strike to protest the lack of resources.
>> READ ALSO - Drinking and driving, a topic that "affects all French people" on New Year's Eve, insists Road Safety
Emergencies that supplant the lack of doctors. "We can not continue to work like this in emergencies, the figures are misleading, we are told that there have never been so many doctors in France, but what are these doctors doing? treating physicians decreases ", points to Europe 1, Christophe Prudhomme, doctor at Samu 93 and spokesman for emergency doctors in France. "So everyone calls Samu and comes to the emergency room by default. [...] I do not accept that politicians say that people come for nothing to emergencies, for 'bobology'". there.
"When you have a fever and a headache, you do not consider it to be very serious and you are made to wait, but if you are not reevaluated in the next hour, it may be one case out of 100,000, a meningitis or a pathology which evolves very quickly and can lead to a death ", thus alerts Christophe Prudhomme.
>> READ ALSO - What is known about a woman's death 12 hours after admission to the emergency room
"Additional measures". As a result, this professional fears the evening of December 31 in overcrowded emergencies, with the risk of missing a patient. "International studies show that when an emergency department is congested, there is excess mortality," he says.
And while the Minister of Health, Agnès Buzyn, presented in September his plan for reform of the health care system in France, this emergency physician believes that means must be released immediately to relieve saturated services. "We need reorganization measures, as the minister has said, but it can not be exonerated from the fact that additional measures are needed."