Rennes (AFP)
Crisis meetings that follow one another, staff requisitioned to respond to calls, quiet calm to investigate people who have already been in contact with the sick ... In Brittany, the Regional Health Agency (ARS) is on the verge of war for ten days.
In normal times, Bernadette Mitouamona is manager of health files, in charge of budgets at ARS, but for the past few days, she has joined the team of volunteers responsible for responding to individuals who call the regional toll-free number, especially those in Morbihan, where 73 cases of Covid-19 were listed on Wednesday out of a total of 93 in Brittany.
the team of volunteers responsible for responding to individuals who call the regional toll-free number, especially those in Morbihan, where 73 cases of Covid-19 were listed on Wednesday out of a total of 93 in Brittany.
"I just had a person who lives in Auray, one of the towns in the + cluster + of Morbihan, and who stayed in China in January", says the employee, who lists the name, contact details and the quality of the appellants, as well as the subject of their request.
Each day, the ARS receives some 800 calls to which seven people are responsible for answering. Not all are always justified, underlines Ms. Mitouamona, citing a Quiberon resident "who wanted to know if he could go fishing", or a lady "who wondered if she should pay the last deadline to book a campsite in Ploërmel".
To deal with the crisis of the new coronavirus, ARS Brittany requisitioned some 40 employees ... and premises usually reserved for unions, the works council and the social worker.
A large room equipped with a dozen computers has therefore been set up as a crisis unit. This is where doctors and epidemiologists monitor the health situation in real time, answer questions and emails from health professionals, with images of a continuous information channel on a projection screen.
Among the questions, that of the supply of masks, the organization of the samples, about 250 per day, are recurrent. A director of Ehpad also wondered how to accompany certain residents who do not wish to carry out a proxy until the polling station.
- "to anticipate" -
It is also in this room that the daily conferences are held with the health establishments of the region. "We take stock every day on the activity of hospitals to anticipate as much as possible the tensions on certain services and to bring together solidarity between establishments", explains Stéphane Mulliez, director general of ARS.
"We distribute the tasks for the day. This morning, for example, I asked our referring doctor to give an update on the capacities of the intensive care units," adds Mr. Mulliez. Answer: 31 places available across Brittany.
Five floors below, the atmosphere is much calmer in a "detective" cell of ten members responsible for identifying people who have been in contact with the sick.
"After a fairly extensive interview with the contaminated people, we call those with whom they have been in contact to find out if it is necessary for them to be tested or confined to their homes", explains Alain Le Tertre, head of Public Health France in Brittany.
Depending on the social life of the patients, the number of "contact cases" can vary from 2 to 60. Are considered to be at risk people who have spent more than a quarter of an hour with a patient, and less than a meter away.
"The postman who comes to deliver a package will not be considered a case, a person having spent a Sunday meal with a patient, yes", summarizes Alain Le Tertre, who estimates that "a few thousand" the total number of people called. "Ant-time-consuming" work, he admits.
If France goes to stage 3 of the epidemic, "there will no longer be a need to contact each of the cases since everyone will potentially present a risk of contamination", he specifies however.
In the room, thick files "Heatwave", "Avian flu 2015", "MERS-CoV 2013", "Sras", enthroned on the shelves. But the ARS personnel mobilized ensure that they have never experienced such a health situation as that which they are confronted with today.
© 2020 AFP