You asked for the 15th, don’t quit! On the front line in the face of the Covid-19 epidemic, Julie is medical regulatory assistance (SAMU) in the PACA region. For the past week, she has noticed an increase in calls to 15 for patients in respiratory distress. Often, these are people, who had already called the previous week for mild symptoms, but whose state of health deteriorated rapidly.
How do you refer patients treated to hospitals in the region?
With the regulator, we regularly check where our sheaves are located. Today we have a few more tools, such as access to the ROR (operational resource directory) in order to know which beds are available. We do not hesitate to call directly to the services to find out whether or not there is space left and whether the doctors agree to receive a particular patient. We then dispatch according to their saturation level, trying to distribute evenly in order to prevent a hospital from being too overwhelmed. by a massive influx of serious cases. The organization is starting to be well established in hospitals since there are PMA (Advanced Medical Post) tents at the entrance to emergencies which take care of sorting. All patients who arrive with a suspicion of Covid, respiratory distress and chest tightness, therefore do not spend these tents where all the necessary equipment is available.
With the lack of places and the growing number of serious patients, are there criteria for intensive care such as age, medical history, etc.?
Yes. Unfortunately, I was confronted with it twice in a weekend. Every day we are certainly confronted with death, it is part of our job. Asking an 80 year old lady to massage her husband because he is in cardiac arrest is often done. The I find myself doing even more difficult things. For example, I received calls from people in respiratory distress, especially in nursing homes or even at home, and given the condition that the person described to me on the phone, I knew very well that I was going to have this call regulated to the doctor. while already knowing the answer … Unfortunately, these people were going to die! I admit that this is something that touched me a lot, especially since, unfortunately, these are situations that will inevitably happen to us more and more frequently in the near future. There are therefore indeed criteria to be met in order not to overload hospitals. It is a “law” which exists anyway in normal times. If I only have an SMUR available, I will definitely send it to the 50-year-old patient with no previous history rather than the 85-year-old bedridden person. We then necessarily put ourselves in the place of the one who works in nursing homes, as was the case this weekend. The nurse called me for a man who was in great respiratory distress, a Covid suspicion because there were proven cases in this EHPAD. I had to make up my mind to ask him to let this gentleman “go” as quietly as possible, accompanying him. It really hurts my heart!
How do you manage to cope psychologically in the face of all these tragedies?
A psychological unit has been set up, but frankly we don’t have time to think about it for the moment. We have our heads in the handlebars. We will be taken care of when the crisis is over. Patients first and us second! When I have a really tough night, I have my little ritual. I cry in the car before I get home so as not to bring home all these dramatic situations that I have just experienced. We imagine our parents, our grandparents and we necessarily say to ourselves: “it could be them! “. We must always be operational and not let ourselves be overwhelmed by our emotions. That’s the life of the 15th!
We work 50- or 60-hour weeks. The teams are exhausted. In my post, which remains relatively unknown, Ms. Buzyn has set up a certification that we must all pass and which recommends recruiting today only certified people. Currently, I am asked to manage a national health crisis and, at the same time, I am forced to pass a certification to ensure that I am well suited to exercise a profession that has been mine for 10 years! It’s totally mind-blowing. President Macron makes great promises to us, but frankly I wonder if we will see the color!
Find the full interview with Julie on the site Maintenance officers
Read other testimonials from caregivers:
- Céline, Covid-19 nurse
- Loic, radio manipulator
-1739366311.jpg "Ellie Bloom: “Seeing the size of the hole in my heart, the cardiologist told me that I had a guardian angel”")
