January 11 in the hospital complex of the city of Creil were only two vacant seats. Since the beginning of December to enter all new patients with the flu. “For 19 years I’ve never seen,” he says, albeit without much trouble, the doctor in the er Loic Pen (Loïc Pen). In the conditions of shortage of places Director Fabrice Lauren (Fabrice Laurain) ordered to stop the work of the Department of ambulatory surgery, that released 13 beds.
“We call employees from vacation and outsourced freelancers, but the staff is still working a lot of overtime,” explains Fabrice Lauren. These exceptional measures are part of the strategy in a hospital approved January 6, in response to the winter influenza epidemic. Logistics is bursting at the seams. Doctors possible provide places in the different departments to make an endless stream of patients, but, unfortunately, some of their efforts
not enough.
Waiting 18 hours
“January 6, one patient had to spend three hours in the ambulance before he was able to bring to the hospital. The physician carried out the inspection in the car,” says loïc Pen. Waiting requires patience. On the night of 6 January, some had to queue up for 18 hours.
Another measure was the formation of a crisis group. The next meeting is scheduled for January 12. Located in a hospital administration building, doctors of different departments discuss the situation to understand how many places remain. The developments observes Regional Agency for health-care-de-France. “Now every day I send them a report,” says the Secretary.
Despite appearing in the corridors of beds, patients waiting for examination or procedure, the situation is calm. No nurses running around and the waiting room was even empty seats. “You do not need just to cause trouble”, philosophical notes Fabrice Lauren. According to him, most patients arrive in the early evening, when “parents come back from work and realize that the kids are sick”. Or in the morning when dealing with the home care staff come from a daily visit and notice the weakened state of the elderly patients.
Many elderly people are now hospitalized because of the flu. This vulnerable group “virus develops chronic disease, explains loïc Pen. — Pneumonia can be treated with an oxygen mask at home, but if it is added to the flu, hospitalization is inevitable.”
As a precaution, located in the vicinity of the nursing home immediately sending patients to the hospital at the slightest suspicion on a flu. “However, the regional health Agency recommends that these agencies would first evaluate the situation,” adds loïc Pen.
The shortage of doctors
In addition, the fear of flu is pushing parents to ensure that the right to take the children to the hospital without prior inspection. “I got 18-year-old boy with suspected flu. My parents didn’t even try to give him dolobran,” says a young nurse Beranger. To reduce the load in the waiting room, she tried to convince them to go to the therapist, but “the parents said that there should be too long to wait.”
Cray around growing medical wasteland. In the Canton of the Apple iigs (about 10 kilometers from the hospital) of 12 doctors who practiced there a few years ago, soon there will be only two. That certainly explains the influx of patients with flu to the hospital, I think Fabrice Lauren and Loic Pen. “The flu was just being difficulties this year,” says loïc Pen. The lack of independent doctors in the hospital complicate the lives of the population.
If the epidemic escalates, will be launched a “white plan”. “We are still far away,” — uteral Fabrice Lauren. In this case, it is assumed to coordinate neighboring hospitals with continuous phone connection. In a simple box, there is all necessary for the implementation of the plan: a stack of papers describing the necessary administrative procedures, phones, a laptop and a reflective armband with the inscription “Directorate”.
