Doctors, too, have experienced containment measures. Among them, Dr Sébastien Thos, general practitioner at SOS Doctors Vannes (Morbihan), who received on 20 February in consultation an octogenarian diagnosed last Saturday carrying the coronavirus.
Informed in the evening by the Regional Health Agency (ARS) which invited him to confine himself, the general practitioner without symptoms immediately left the restaurant where he was dining to return home. This Sunday evening, 24 hours later, the same ARS called him to lift his quarantine which had become useless: “Before this confinement of a day, I stayed eleven days to continue working, living, meeting people” , he wonders.
“We are in the midst of preparation,” reacts the 44-year-old Breton doctor who is not fooling around. We have learned nothing from the great past epidemics. One would have thought, he continues, that in calm times we had learned from previous epidemics, SARS, H1N1, that we would have defined clear protocols. None of this has been done, we are today in daily improvisation. It’s been days since we asked for masks, for example; we are still waiting for them. Fortunately, in Vannes, SOS Doctors is backed by a clinic which has agreed to sell it to us. This situation is not normal when we are in contact with many fragile patients and therefore vulnerable to Covid-19, ”insists Sébastien Thos.
Forced to wear expired masks
Among the other confined caregivers, Dr. Françoise Courtalhac, general practitioner in Lacroix-Saint-Ouen (Oise), very close to Compiègne where two patients admitted to the local hospital have now died. It is in his office that the patient hospitalized in Amiens (Somme) was received in consultation, ten days ago, like at least two other patients who will be tested this Tuesday. His office has been completely closed for 14 days since February 27, with compulsory confinement for the four associated doctors. “We are a mini-cluster in the cluster”, tries to put the general practitioner into perspective. And the population of the sector, particularly worried, finds itself without its doctors.
“I should have received masks from the ARS, I was told asking me to stay at home, yet I did not receive any materials or recommendations. Nothing, ”says the general practitioner, confined and forced for almost a week to wear masks… expired, dating from the H1N1 flu. “We still had some in the cabinet, it’s better than nothing,” she quips. To avoid contaminating her spouse, she has set up a sanitary organization with a cord which avoids any contact.
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“All this does not work very well, we should have received FFP2 masks a long time ago, but there are none any more. In the office too, outdated masks were used. Liberal doctors are the forgotten ones. The authorities keep talking about the hospital, which is suffering, certainly, but we, who are at the forefront? And we, and the city nurses, are now asked to follow patients at home! “Continues the general practitioner who feels” a deep disappointment “. A misunderstanding also because “we are not even associated with the research of contact patients. However, we obviously know many of these potential contacts, I could have found them easily by phone. “
Compensation beyond 90 days off
Collateral effect, it is she who will pay the bill for her work stoppage, because liberal doctors (like liberal nurses) do not start receiving daily allowances until after 90 days of work stoppage.
