2023-08-18 14:01:38
While the emergencies are under tension and an episode of heat wave is falling on France, the Minister of Health assured, on franceinfo, that the health system was “extremely robust”.
The heat wave which weighs down the south and the east of France should still last and even intensify for a few days. A crisis unit was even convened this Thursday by the Prime Minister, while 19 departments are placed in heat wave orange vigilance this Friday.
If the government is on alert, it is because the heat wave puts the most vulnerable populations in danger: namely the elderly, young children, disabled or isolated people. In 2022, more than 60,000 people were victims of heat on the European continent, according to an Inserm study.
Tension in the emergency services
However, hospitals, which are faced with a crisis situation due to the lack of caregivers, fear a new influx of patients, since they are already forced to close or “filter” the entrance to many emergency services. Several representatives of emergency physicians this week judged the extent of these closures “more serious” than in 2022.
The Minister of Health Aurélien Rousseau, questioned on franceinfo this Friday, wanted to be reassuring: “The hospital has faced, the hospital will face, (…) the organization of the health system, it is extremely robust and it will be robust in the face of this episode of heat”.
“I would not say that the situation is more serious”, replied the Minister of Health who also decided to reactivate the toll-free Heatwave info service number this Friday (0800.06.66.66).
“She is still tense, and she will be tense after the summer too, there won’t be a return to normal all of a sudden. We have a problem with the availability of health professionals,” he said. for follow-up.
“It’s true that we have areas of tension everywhere on the territory, but today we anticipate them better”.
“Having the reflex to call 15”
“Going through 15 means that no Frenchman who needs treatment has gone without a medical answer”, assured Aurélien Rousseau while recalling that you have to have the “reflex” to call this number “at the slightest discomfort to be oriented in the health system”.
This summer, “hospitals and in particular university hospitals have played their role as a platform and support for smaller hospitals which, sometimes, cannot hold out”, he continued. Targeted one-off closures make it possible to have “hospitals that remain open during the day” or closed only “in deep night”.
“It’s not satisfactory” but it “makes it possible to maintain, in territories where we could no longer, offer care”, further advanced the minister.
However, three-quarters of the medical regulation assistants responsible for absorbing the calls of the 15th went on strike at the start of the week, “exhausted” by a strong increase in activity. A strike which “will have no consequences on care” according to the minister because “the legal system means that they are at work even if they are on strike”.
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