Frédéric Adnet, Professor of Emergency Medicine, and Head of the Emergency Department at Avicenne Hospital in Bobigny and the Samu in Seine-Saint-Denis, gives an update on hospitals, the lack of beds, nursing staff and Omicron.
The situation is critical. Today, the problem is the number of beds available, which has drastically decreased due to a lack of personnel.
We will certainly reach 30% of beds closed during the holiday period
In our hospital, (Editor’s note, Hôpital Avicenne AP-HP in Bobigny), we are at least 20% of beds available and this will get worse during the holidays because the staff who are still present will end up taking leave despite the measurements of Martin Hirsch, the Director General of Public Assistance – Hospitals of Paris. We will certainly reach 30% of beds closed during the holiday period.
This situation is dramatic because we have a Covid pressure which is, for the moment, not huge but which is gradually increasing. In terms of critical care, we have an occupancy rate of 50% by Covid patients, the other 50 percent are occupied by non-Covid patients, which means that we are full.
The real debate in the next two weeks: are we going to start deprogramming to mobilize staff to welcome Covid patients or not?
I am rather pessimistic. The staff is exhausted and disillusioned. He has the impression of being in an institution that does not treat its patients well. Many want to change jobs and leave. I don’t know if government or internal AP-HP announcements will change things.
It’s going to be a big leap into the unknown, a bit scary. But I do not want to hold a catastrophic speech. When we look at the curves for South Africa, the first country to have an Omicron wave, we observe that this variant did not have a huge hospital impact, nor in terms of mortality.
The Omicron variant seems less virulent than the Delta but we must remain cautious
With Omicron, it seems that the incidence rate does not have the same impact on the hospitalization rate as with the Delta variant. This should be taken with great caution, but the Omicron variant seems less virulent than the Delta. On the other hand, it is more contagious. Today we are at 20% of Covid patients contaminated by the Omicron variant at AP-HP. But I repeat, we must be careful.
At the Avicenne hospital, I have between two and five new Covid patients a day; which for the moment is modest, except that to accommodate them, I have no beds. If we really have a 6th wave of Covid patients, we will have a major problem, we will not be where to house the sick, but at the moment I cannot say whether or not we will be overwhelmed.
–
