Lille (AFP)

"Six hours of waiting and again, I was lucky": after a night spent "incognito" on a stretcher at the emergency Douai (North), PCF MP Alain Bruneel denounces Monday a "dramatic" situation, calling Agnès Buzyn to make this experiment, "without camera nor collaborator".

While more than 150 emergency services are on strike to demand better working conditions, the communist deputy of the North wanted to "see" the reality and "follow the path of a patient + lambda +", but without warning the management of the hospital beforehand, he told AFP. Friday night, he went to the urgencies of Douai, "simulating stomach pain".

"At 9:30 pm, when I arrived in front of one of the two regulatory nurses", who were in charge of "judging the patients' state of gravity and guiding them," more than 200 people, including 59 children, had already gone through the day, "he said.

"I took my blood pressure, my temperature, I had an electro-cardiogram" then "I was told that there was a waiting time of 3h20 - out of vital emergencies - before being examined by a doctor (. ..) I finally waited six hours, "lamented the elected.

"The staff do everything they can, with what they have (...) but the situation is dramatic": "the stretchers pile up, in the corridors" then "in single file before arriving in front of the three boxes "reserved for consultations, he detailed.

"It's a huge heat, the staff can not give us food or drink because they do not know what we have (...) Elderly people need to go to the bathroom, but there is There are not enough staff, so patients get up to get the nurse, sometimes accompanying them to the toilet themselves, "he said.

"The staff, always on the move, never stops" and "finds themselves out of breath," said Bruneel, denouncing "the glaring lack of human and material resources."

As a scorching summer looms, "the government has not taken the real pulse of this dramatic situation," said Bruneel finally, inviting the Minister of Health Agnès Buzyn to "spend a night in the emergency room, without camera neither collaborator, this experience is worth more than all written reports, past and future ".

? 2019 AFP