They are forty to queue, this Monday at the end of the morning, on the place Aimé Césaire of Montreuil (93). Determined to be tested, the patients wait calmly, despite the cold. A large part of them came as soon as the center opened at 10 a.m. – or even before.
This is the case of Ramatou, 17 years old. After almost 2 hours of waiting, this physics student at Paris-VII regrets a little for not having tried to get an appointment elsewhere. Coming to the nearby Savattero Municipal Health Center (CMS), the girl was warned that she was in contact via an SMS from Social Security. She greatly hopes to be negative: she will take her first partial on Saturday. If she has to miss the exam, the coefficient for her next partial will be doubled.
Slightly further ahead in the queue, Tamara has been waiting a little less time: around 1h30. She is no less exasperated: “I’m fed up”, she laughs nervously as she cradles her 11 month old baby in her stroller. The stakes of the test are just as important to her: she must have a hand cyst operated on within a week. An operation that cannot take place if it is positive. And under the current circumstances, it is difficult to know if the intervention can be postponed.
“There are no more tests for today! Come back tomorrow !”
The patients move slowly but surely towards the small white marquee attached to the CMS building, where they can be taken. But, around 12:30 p.m., it’s a cold shower. A member of the nursing staff comes out of the tent and counts the first eleven patients in the queue. Arriving at the twelfth, she announces: “There are no more tests for today! Come back tomorrow !” The center is however open until 3 p.m. A 19-year-old nursing student is responsible for breaking the news. The young woman explains that the center only has between 70 and 100 tests per day. Open since September 7, the screening center regularly suffers from “bugs”, as she calls them: “The other day we were given the tests late. Today, the printer is broken ” she enumerates, a bit tired. She describes a heavy workload, which adds to the palpable tension in the patients.
At the nurse’s announcement, a mother grows impatient. Coming to have her two-year-old daughter tested at the request of Social Security, she regrets that priority is not given to children. But the student nurse can only promise to give her priority the next day – provided she shows up before the center opens. “Is it just me, or is it just rubbish?” she asks the other patients behind her, who nod.
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