“Fear has disappeared”: for these French doctors the second wave of Covid-19 is less heavy than the first



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More experienced after the spring crisis, doctors at Argenteuil hospital are better managing this second wave of Covid-19, writes Liberation. However, nurses trust on a daily basis that they are always overloaded with the number of patients.

Although the health situation remains dire in France, as indicated by Jean Castex on Thursday, November 13, French doctors have learned their lessons from the first wave of Covid-19 and are fighting the epidemic more successfully, as confirmed by the example of caregivers. of the Argenteuil hospital (Val-d’Oise) interviewed by Liberation.

“Patients whose blood is not sufficiently oxygenated are detected much earlier even though their only clinical sign is rapid breathing. They are inserted more quickly into a fan. No more intubated unless absolutely necessary and as late as possible. While they don’t always avoid the pulley, they recover more easily. The death rate of cases has dropped from 40% during the first wave of Covid to 25% today, “says Dr. Gaëtan Plantefeve.

In addition, doctors go to great lengths to avoid placing patients in intensive care, even though there are many vacancies. “From a certain age, resuscitation is disproportionate”, explains one of the health workers on a daily basis, who believes that this is a real “test” for the body of the elderly or those suffering from serious diseases.

Dr Plantefeve welcomes the fact that the alarmist second wave forecasts for Île-de-France have turned out to be inaccurate. But he finds it hard to explain with just the new containment that “no doubt” helped.

“The truth is we don’t know what’s going on. Is this the natural cycle of the pandemic? The sign of greater vigilance on the part of the population? The beginning of collective immunity? What is certain is that, in Val-d’Oise, the kinetics of the epidemic has nothing to do with March ”, adds the doctor.

A resuscitation team member also believes that his colleagues are “away from the stress of spring when some worked in cosmonaut clothes”:

“We know better the pathogenicity of the virus. It is not Ebola and we are equipped. We no longer go home with the fear of infecting our loved ones. The fear has disappeared ”.

Where are the non-Covid people?

In this situation, the doctors of the hospital question the absence of patients suffering from other diseases.

“I don’t know where the heart attacks, the strokes, the pulmonary embolisms, the traumas went […] We haven’t seen them for three weeks. We do not reject non-Covid: they do not come. I can’t explain it to myself, ”says Dr Damien Contou.

Tired carers

Although medical shock has been avoided at this hospital, it is still the caregivers who bear the heavy burden in the face of the number of patients that often outnumber them.

“We turn to a nurse for three patients, while the legal threshold is 2.5 […] Girls moan when they hear that in some hospitals she is a nurse for two. Here they are forced to give up their leave and make up to 18 more calls per month. Fortunately, overtime is paid. But it is tiring and very complicated to manage ”, indicates their health director, Céline Abella, who adds that the staff is“ seriously lacking ”.

According to one of the nurses, their situation is aggravated by the absence of psychologists who, during the spring, worked alongside them to support the families of the deceased. Additionally, relatives of Covid-19 victims sometimes do not exercise precautions in the face of the disease and put themselves and staff at risk.

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