Papeete (AFP)

In the emergency car park of the French Polynesian hospital in Papeete, in the hubbub of the ambulance engine, a stretcher bearer conveys an elderly woman, placed on oxygen, to the advanced sorting station which sends her to the Covid emergency room.

In this archipelago hit hard by the Covid epidemic since the beginning of August, Dr Tony Tekuataoa, head of emergencies, explains that "for a few days the figures have tended to decrease a little bit".

He hopes to have "passed" the top of the "wave", after having known "an extraordinary rate of contamination", and "an explosion of cases".

He says he saw the emergency room overwhelmed on a "pretty dark day on August 18, where we were clearly overwhelmed."

Patients who "have an average age between 47 and 48 years" will remain in intensive care for one to three weeks, depending on the severity of their condition, explains the head of the intensive care unit, Dr Laure Baudouin.

Lying on their backs, the "sedated and intubated" patients, a majority of men, occupy the beds of what is normally the recovery room, next to the operating theaters.

It is daylight but the patients, under constant observation, are lying under the harsh neon light.

The nursing staff exchange hushed words with the hum of machines and the beeps in the background that bear witness to the patient's constant.

"We provide continuous care, we take care of it 24 hours a day," explains Dr Baudouin, who recounts that since the start of the crisis all staff have canceled their leave, while the hospital has received the support of reservists.

This is not enough, however, she believes.

- Frustration of caregivers -

"In the service, we are frustrated not being able to open all the beds at our disposal because we still lack resources", testifies the head of intensive care, who evokes the "saturation" of the intensive care unit.

The hospital center normally has 24 intensive care beds.

With the epidemic, the hospital has armed 63 resuscitation beds by overflowing on other services "but everything is not open because we do not have the staff for all the beds for the moment", according to Dr Baudouin.

Medical staff take care of Covid-19 patients on respiratory assistance at the French Polynesia Hospital Center (CHPF), in Pirae, near Papeete on September 3, 2021 Suliane FAVENNEC AFP

Today, "we have 24 nurses / day and 24 nurses / night and we would need 30 if we wanted to take care of all the beds we have".

Because a resuscitation bed is not only a physical bed, equipment, "but above all you need human resources, we cannot take care of patients if we have no knowledge of resuscitation", assures the doctor.

The consequence is that "we leave patients, who would require intensive care, out of resuscitation".

They only access it "at the last moment when they really need a place in intensive care".

Suddenly, "we prioritize, we always take the most serious patients and we leave the others on the floors," says Dr. Baudouin.

"These are collegial discussions with the resuscitators on criteria of co-morbidity, age, weight, but it is also unfortunately, and what we have experienced, a problem of space. We went up from 24 to 49 places , but even with that we were saturated ", also testifies Dr. Tekuataoa.

"The (health) reserve comes to help us to strengthen ourselves, but also to relieve the teams because behind the health crisis there will be a psychological crisis for caregivers," predicts the head of emergencies who expects to see cases of post traumatic stress because "we are there to save the sick, not to see them die".

Since the start of the health crisis, 480 people have died in French Polynesia, according to official data updated on Friday.

© 2021 AFP