• Hospital services in the Gironde will be put to the test during the summer period.

  • The ARS organizes the supply of care with reduced staff.

  • General medicine will be called upon for reinforcement, in particular via on-call medical centres.

While an indefinite strike began on Tuesday at the Bordeaux University Hospital, the regional health agency (ARS) of Nouvelle-Aquitaine took stock of the mobilization of the various actors in Gironde, before the summer.

This tourist department does not have a drop in its patient base in the summer when there are fewer staff during this holiday period.

The ARS, for example, recorded 135,000 visits to emergency services in the summer of 2020 and more than 154,000 in the summer of 2021, an increase of 14%, with no drop in attendance in urban areas.

The goal of the ARS "to ensure the continuity of care in a traditionally difficult period", underlines Bénédicte Motte, departmental director of the Gironde, for the ARS-Nouvelle-Aquitaine,

  • Regulated emergencies

For several weeks, access to the emergency room of the CHU Pellegrin has been regulated by the 15 after 5 p.m.

The objective: to refocus the activity of emergencies on the most serious cases while redirecting patients who come under general medicine.

To relieve its teams, the CHU has already announced that it will close 600 beds this summer.

In the emergencies of Libourne (125 passages per day) and Sainte-Foy-la-Grande (25 passages per day) "the situation is degraded by lack of medical and paramedical staff, especially at night", points out Caroline Delarivière, medical coordinator of the territorial emergency network (RTU 33).

In these sectors too, the strategy is not to accept patients who do not meet the emergency criteria.

"We don't leave them in the wild, they are redirected," she emphasizes.

Consultations with general practitioners have been offered to these patients redirected to Pellegrin, from 2 p.m. to midnight, since the beginning of June.

  • General medicine mobilized

If the department of Gironde is the 11th in France best endowed in general practitioners, there are contrasts on the territory, in particular in the Médoc and the South-Gironde.

To guarantee access to unscheduled care, the department can count on the three on-call medical centers (Libourne, Blaye and Langon), on the six territorial professional health communities active this summer (Sud Médoc, Sud Bassin d'Arcachon and Val de l'Eyre, Ouest Gironde, Entre Deux Mers, Nord Ouest Métropole, Dropt sur Garonne) and multi-professional health centers accessible from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday to Friday and Saturday morning, from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. hours.

  • Facilities also in maternity wards

The activity of the eleven maternities of Gironde also promises to be busy this summer, in the context of a lack of staff (gynecologists and midwives in particular).

The 400 liberal midwives installed in the department will be called upon as reinforcements.

The Lesparre maternity ward will have to close in August, for lack of obstetrician-gynecologists.

Pregnant women will be invited to refer to the Wallerstein private hospital and the Bordeaux Nord Aquitaine polyclinic.

The establishment was already closed for several days in May this year.

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  • Emergency room

  • Hospital

  • Summer

  • Aquitaine