caregivers fear that the situation will deteriorate at the Nord Franche-Comté hospital

North Franche Comté Hospital see more people affected by the coronavirus arrive in its wards since mid-March. For the moment, the situation is under control but the pressure is being felt in intensive care. About fifty coronavirus patients are currently hospitalized, a third of them are taken care of in intensive care.

These figures are in absolute terms less impressive than during the first wave but proportionately, there are now more severe cases. One of the explanations comes from the British variant. It “circulates extremely strongly in the region, in large majority. This variant is more aggressive, gives more severe forms” explains Anne-Sophie Dupond, the president of the establishment medical commission. DYounger and less fragile people can therefore end up in critical states.

If the hospital has to treat around 20 patients in intensive care at the same time, it will have to open more beds, at the cost of its surgical capacities which would drop by more than 60% – they have already been reduced by a third since December. “An additional patient in intensive care, when you see the number of staff it takes to take care of it properly, and that can quickly change the system.” Faced with the lack of caregivers, the hospital must distribute its forces to the detriment of operating theaters.

There is fatigue to go back to the fight, because we never stopped.

It is the implementation on the ground of the efforts requested by Emmanuel Macron. “The efforts, we will make them, it is our mission. Afterwards there is all the same a weariness, a certain degree of fed up” says Anne-Sophie Dupond. Caregivers hoped to be less affected by the third wave, “perhaps in the North Franche-Comté it will not be so big, those who have already had the covid are for the moment protected. But there is fatigue to go back into combat, because we never have stopped.”

Since the fall, the hospital has never gone back to zero covid patients, there were always between five and seven in the wards.

–