The episode of heat wave coming to an end was accompanied by an "intensity in emergency services" but "the situation has been largely controlled," said Friday on CNews Secretary of State for Protection of childhood, Adrien Taquet. "Overall, what we can see is that the French but also institutions, recreation centers ... in short, all the institutions that welcome people have integrated since 2003 the behaviors that must be adopted in case heat wave, "he said, with the effect" that emergency services are less stressed than they could be in 2003 ".
"It is true that yesterday emergency services have been a little more than in the month of June" and there was "more calls to Samu this time than the last time", he said. However, "there was an intensity in the emergency services but the situation was generally under control".
"An increase in passages of patients aged 75 years"
In a statement released Friday, the Paris Public Assistance Hospital (AP-HP) indicates that for the day of Thursday, when the temperature reached 42.6 ° C in Paris, the volume of activity in its services of reception of emergencies (SAU) was "in accordance with the expected values for the period". However, "an increase (+ 20%) of passages of patients aged 75 and over is more particularly observed," notes the institution, stating that this "represents about 40 additional patients for AP-HP UAA. ".
The seasonal pathology monitoring bulletin, based on a regional sample of AP-HP services and excluding AP-HP, "shows an increase in pathologies related to heat.This increase, which mainly concerns adults, remains moderate", the press release says: "on average less than two patients per emergency department in Île-de-France".
Summer periods "always complicated for emergencies"
"Given the drop in temperatures, the number of people suffering from a pathology directly related to the heat should decrease from today", estimates the AP-HP from the first reports of information concerning the day of Friday.
"Summer periods are always complicated periods for emergencies," acknowledged Adrien Taquet, recalling the decision of the Minister of Health Agnès Buzyn to invest 15 million euros to recruit temporary staff. A strike started in mid-March at the call of the Inter-emergency collective to demand more resources and salary increases, affected more than 200 services throughout France earlier this week.