The lines are drawn in the Covid 2 unit, the second department dedicated to the epidemic at the Montluçon public hospital center. Fatigue can be read on everyone’s faces, but nurses, orderlies, ASHs (hospital service workers), and doctors, ignore it. They all have their heads on the handlebars, always something to do.
Ten days ago, the pneumology closed to accommodate twenty other patients with Covid-19. Faced with the resurgence of cases in the Montluçonnaise region, “we set out, in 24 hours, to open a second unit. All the places were filled in two days ”, observes Dr Nacer Djilali, head of the pneumology service.
The figures of the Covid-19 epidemic continue to worry in Auvergne
The twenty-eight beds of the first Covid unit, in the general medicine service transformed for the occasion, are also all taken, while the establishment counted twenty-six dead on Wednesday, November 11. They were four in mid-October, to have succumbed to the coronavirus. The region, spared during the first wave in spring, is now hit hard.
It was brutal. We were spared much longer than the others. Here, it was calm when in Moulins and Vichy, it rose. In a week, we caught up with them.
Bernadette Mallot, director of the public hospital
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And the sick keep coming. Today, almost all emergency room consultations are cases of Covid-19 suspicion. “Sunday, November 8, out of fifty arrivals, we had seventeen hospitalizations. »We must find solutions to take charge of them.
In reality, ten of the fourteen places are occupied by Covid patients, and one by a patient unrelated to the virus. So there are still three beds available, yes, but it’s extremely tight. The hospital stands ready to open three more this Thursday, November 12 if necessary.
“During the first wave, for two and a half months we welcomed patients from the East and from Paris. We only had one patient from Montluçon, ”recalls one of the nurses from the department. There, they are all from Allier.
Treatment protocols are adapted
The reality is overwhelming: they are intubated people, who can decompensate quickly, while no treatment exists. “We adapt the protocols. We are in contact with the infectiology of the Clermont-Ferrand University Hospital and the French-language Pneumology Society, ”continues the doctor.
The vast majority of patients are elderly. But the sheave welcomed a 25-year-old. He got away with it.
Hygiene standards are even stricter with this highly contagious virus. The rooms are screened daily, as are the doors, handrails, carts. In short, everything that is likely to be affected is cleaned regularly. It’s physical.
Call for retirees
We ask the staff to make an even greater effort, while they are also affected by the disease. Currently, around a hundred (medical and non-medical staff) are contaminated and therefore on leave. Bernadette Mallot has also activated the third and final level of the white plan, which makes it possible in particular to block staff leave to deal with the crisis.
Covid-19: very supervised visits to hospitals in Montluçon (Allier)
To find hands elsewhere, certain acts have been deprogrammed. “We called in the liberal nurses. They gave us the days they could clear. That is in place. Monday, November 9, we sent emails and letters to our agents and retired doctors to come to work. We have already had a positive response, ”emphasizes Bernardette Mallot.
On its Facebook account Tuesday, the hospital center even launched an appeal to all retired health professionals to help it cope with the epidemic.
The Montluçon hospital is far from being out of the crisis.
Photos Florian Salesse
Texte Seher Turkmen
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