INTERVIEW
Arrived this morning at the Ministry of Health, Olivier Véran recovers two burning files, that of the public hospital crisis and the coronavirus. With 1,770 dead in China out of 70,500 cases identified, and around 800 cases of confirmed contamination in thirty countries of the world, the WHO warns that it is impossible to predict which direction the epidemic will take. "Olivier Véran must not waste time. A meeting is being prepared in China, France must be represented there!", Reacted to the microphone of Europe 1 Patrick Pelloux, the president of the Association emergency doctors from France.
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"We must continue to mobilize the teams and anticipate as much as possible what could happen if the pandemic continues to develop," he explains, while inviting to put the importance of the crisis into perspective. "The seasonal flu kills, accidents at work kill every day, as far as the coronavirus is concerned, we only had one death, and this is a Chinese man who was already very sick. keep, "says Patrick Pelloux.
A breathless health system
For this emergency doctor, however, the French healthcare system is not ready to face a situation comparable to that which China is currently experiencing. "This would pose enormous questions to the French health system, because we are dry, on our knees! We are going through a major hospital crisis which calls into question the fundamentals which represent the social base of the public hospital in France."
Faced with this situation, The departure of Agnes Buzyn, who has just taken over from Benjamin Griveaux in the race for mayor of Paris, sends a bad signal, according to Patrick Pelloux. "Whether or not we agree with her policy, she was the commander of the ship in the midst of a storm."