the union of resuscitators warns of the lasting deficit of resuscitation beds

Not a single intensive care bed “persistent” more, or nearly so, was created during the second wave of the Covid-19 epidemic. This is the severe observation drawn up by the Union of resuscitators, which must be made public on Wednesday 18 November. According to a survey that collects returns at 1^is In November of 114 resuscitation services in the area – or more than a third of these services -, the increase in power in recent months is based, as in March, exclusively on resuscitation “Ephemeral”. That is the transformation of beds for continuous surveillance or intensive care, thanks to a strengthening of the staff.

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“The second wave is moving away, we will start closing these beds, and if a third wave comes, we will find ourselves in the same situation again”, alert Djillali Annane, president of the Union of resuscitators. The argument is all the more important as the saturation of the resuscitations led to the two successive inmates decreed since March, he stresses.

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The government speech contradicts

Ten months after the wave of the new coronavirus in the country, and while the second wave could have reached its epidemic peak, with a number of “Covid” patients in intensive care stabilized below 5,000 in recent days, these doctors, on the front line in the health crisis, he wants to restore “The reality of increasing resuscitation skills”. And contradict, in vain, the government discourse of a better preparation of the hospital for this rebound epidemic, with the passage to 5,800 “durable” beds in intensive care, up from 5,000 until then.

Almost all intensive care units that responded to the survey therefore did not report the creation of so-called “permanent” additional beds, including 1^is January and 1^is November. The term refers to beds equipped with equipment in an intensive care environment, that is a room of at least 20 square meters, but above all for which permanent staff has been assigned. Barely one or two beds in total would be destined to last, we point out in the 114 responding wards (CHU for three quarters, hospitals for the remaining quarter), which offer, in normal times, almost 1 600 beds, reaching 2,220 beds in 1^is November.

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Could we do otherwise, in the urgency of the intermediate waves? Another option is on the table, defending resuscitators, who barely tasted the words of the Prime Minister, Jean Castex, on November 12, referring to these caregivers who “Don’t ask us to increase the number of intensive care beds”, More “Above all to do everything possible to prevent patients from arriving at the hospital.”

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