This night from March 31 to 1is April 2020 continues to haunt him. Around one in the morning, the director of the regional health agency (ARS) of Ile-de-France, Aurélien Rousseau, receives a call from the director general of the Public Assistance-Hospitals of Paris, Martin Hirsch: he There is no longer a single “sheave” place in the whole region. This fear irrigates the first wave of the epidemic: living an “Italian” scenario, with overwhelmed hospitals, condemned to practice war medicine.
Until dawn, the senior official looks for the last respirators, as well as caregivers, to open a handful of beds in an emergency. “That night, it went to 2 or 3 beds close, he says. We thought we weren’t going to get there. With Martin, we cried. “ The day before, Rousseau and Hirsch had made a chilling tour of the hospitals of Seine-Saint-Denis, a “Horror”, he remembers: not enough masks, not enough gowns, caregivers who come and go, haggard, and above all, “Death, everywhere”.
Since the start of the epidemic, Aurélien Rousseau, 44, has been on the front line in the management of this historic crisis: “Hundreds of shits a day”, he sums up. Appointed in 2018 at the head of the ARS, he is the armed wing of the Ministry of Health in Ile-de-France. And must be accountable. March 21, 2020, at the heart of this “Sad spring”, he is invited to Laurent Delahousse’s newscast, on France 2. His first duplex in a “20 heures”. The pale and crumpled face, tucked into a too small jacket brought in disaster by his communications director, the senior official, so far always remained in the shadows, must take stock of the epidemic from the hall of the maternity ward des Bluets, in Paris, where his partner Marguerite Cazeneuve – ex-social counselor in Matignon – has just arrived for the birth of their son, Abel. Aurélien Rousseau, who has kept a slight accent from the South, immediately adopts a precise and direct tone, contrasting with the evasive responses, even non-existent, of the health authorities.
The hours spent preparing for his hearings before parliamentary committees of inquiry or the Court of Justice of the Republic made him “Hypermnesic”, in his words, on the chronology of a crisis with twists and turns. After the chaotic battle of masks and tests, this is the vaccine battle. “Every night, I wake up doing dose allocation”, he admits, saying to himself at the same time « hyperconfiant et hyperinquiet » facing this third wave. “We have the instructions for use, but it’s much harder. We are stuck in fatigue. “
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