patients over 75 would have a 46% higher risk of dying after a night on a stretcher

2023-06-09 06:54:17

A study presented at the congress of emergency physicians identified serious consequences of the saturation of emergency services for the elderly.

For patients over 75, a night in the ER spent on a stretcher could be the last. According to a cohort study conducted in 97 emergency departments in France, consulted by France Inter, the risk of dying in the emergency room is 46% higher for elderly subjects. The study has not yet been validated for publication in a scientific journal, but it was presented to the congress of emergency physicians on Thursday June 8, and seems to provide a more precise observation than the usual echoes of the emergency crisis.

“Impressive” results

Emergency services were closely followed in the midst of a triple epidemic of influenza, Covid, and bronchiolitis. Indeed, between December 12 and 14, 2022, emergency services reach a general state of saturation, throughout France. The study looked at the case of 1598 patients aged over 75 years. She distinguished and compared two categories of subjects: on the one hand the 891 people who were able to get a bed before midnight on the day of their arrival at the hospital, on the other the 707 who had to spend at least one night on a stretcher.

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One of the main contributors to this study, Yonathan Freund, an emergency doctor in Paris, at the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital, told France Inter that “the results are impressive». «The excess mortality is 46%, presque 50% so, if you spent a night on a stretcher in the emergency room.» «Pire, he detailsif we look more specifically at elderly patients who have limited autonomy, and therefore are even more fragile, these patients die almost twice as much if they spend a night on a stretcher rather than in a conventional hospital bed “

This study details recent reports from French emergencies. From December 1 to 31, 2022, 31 people would have died alone on stretchers in the emergency room corridors, or because an SMUR could not be engaged quickly enough, learned the successor of François Braun at the Figaro. «If we were exhaustive, we could imagine that there are many more“, he added.

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