Dunkirk hospital is organizing to deal with the third wave of Covid-19
The situation is tense in hospitals in Dunkirk and the region.
REUTERS - PASCAL ROSSIGNOL
Text by: RFI Follow
3 min
The health crisis is worsening in the north of France.
The incidence rate of the coronavirus has exceeded a thousand cases per 100,000 inhabitants in Dunkirk and the situation is tense in hospitals.
From now on, transfers of intensive care patients from the Dunkirk University Hospital, which is saturated, are no longer only to establishments in the region, but also outside.
Two patients were taken by helicopter to Le Havre, Normandy, on Wednesday.
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Faced with an incidence rate that has exceeded one thousand cases per 100,000 inhabitants in
the Dunkirk agglomeration
, one hundred additional intensive care beds should open in Hauts-de-France by the end of the week, including three in Dunkirk University Hospital.
New transfers of patients to other regions should also take place, warns the Regional Health Agency (ARS).
The hospitals are not all saturated, but the health authorities anticipate a worsening of the epidemic.
"
We have not yet reached the epidemic peak in the Dunkirk conurbation, we will be at the peak in ten to fifteen days,"
explains Doctor Thierry Paupard, from the Dunkirk University Hospital.
Moreover, this infection tends to spread to the rest of the region as was expected.
It's a third wave that is even stronger than the first two.
"
Younger intensive care patients
A stronger wave, but also different.
If the patients do not develop more serious forms of Covid-19, on the other hand, those admitted to intensive care at the Dunkirk University Hospital are younger: 62 years on average against 65 to 66 years during the first two waves.
A difference that can be explained by vaccination, but not only, according to Doctor Paupard: “
What we see in consultation or teleconsultation is that the oldest patients, feeling the most at risk, are 'most likely self-confine.
"
As for the confinement introduced last weekend, doctors from the Dunkirk University Hospital believe that it is still too early to say if it will work.
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