While more than 15,700 hospitalizations for Covid-19 have been recorded in the past 7 days, “it becomes necessary to increase more strongly the possibilities of patient care” infected with the coronavirus, wrote the Minister of Health Olivier Véran in a letter addressed to the directors of hospitals. He asks hospitals that had not yet done so to trigger the white plan “without waiting” in order to deprogram non-emergency medical activities and “release of bed availability”.
Ile-de-France hospitals under pressure
While in Ile-de-France, the occupancy rate of beds in intensive care by patients with Covid was 54% just 10 days ago, this rate has just crossed the 70% mark on Tuesday, October 27. . According to Aurélien Rousseau, director general of the Île-de-France regional health agency (ARS), who was invited to the LCI channel, “The situation in Ile-de-France hospitals is getting tenser from hour to hour.Currently, there are 818 patients infected with covid-19 in intensive care. This represents 70% of our initial reception capacities. At the same time, we have nearly 3,800 patients in conventional hospitalization services”.
“The pressure is on the whole hospital” insists Aurélien Rousseau who asks that we now go “to the next stage”.
The white plan launched in Ile-de-France, Lyon, Lille…
A few days ago, Aurélien Rousseau had asked directors of health establishments in the Ile-de-France region “to trigger their white plan to mobilize all their resources and anticipate the days to come”. As a reminder, the white plan is a crisis device which makes it possible to “mobilize immediately the means of any kind available to (a health establishment) in the event of an influx of patients, or to deal with an exceptional health situation” can we read on the website of the Ministry of Health. The white plan, in particular, allows the provision of additional beds in hospitals and the deprogramming of non-essential operations.
The white plan was launched in the hospitals of Ile-de-France on October 8, the Hospices Civils de Lyon preceded them on September 22. On October 22, the Lille University Hospital also launched this white plan to respond to the influx of patients and on October 26, it was the Grand-Est which followed suit.
This October 27, the Regional Health Agency of Hauts-de-France indicated that it had asked the hospitals of the region to open 100 new intensive care beds, to bring the regional capacity to 700 beds.
Deprogramming of non-urgent operations
Last March, to free up beds in intensive care units and deal with the influx of patients with Covid-19 during the first wave of the coronavirus, hospitals had deprogrammed a certain number of non-urgent surgical operations. A memory that will hardly reassure at a time when we learn that the AP-HP, the Ile-de-France hospital system, announces that it is once again forced to carry out the first deprogramming of operations in the face of the influx of patients from the coronavirus in Ile-de-France hospitals.
As a precaution, the AP-HP began by deprogramming 20% of its surgical operations. The Minister of Health Olivier Véran was already reporting on this hospital tension in Ile-de-France from mid-September, stressing that:
- The share of COVID activity in the emergency room, which has been slowly increasing since the end of June, had doubled in 15 daysdropping from 2.2% of overall emergency activity to 4%.
- The number of hospitalized patients within the region was increasing very rapidly.
- At a rate corresponding to a doubling of the number of patients in intensive care every 15 days, the minister had planned that 40% of regional intensive care capacities in Ile-de-France would be used around October 10, 60% around October 25 ( 700 patients), and 85% around November 11 (1000 patients).
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