AFP, published on Friday March 13, 2020 at 8:58 p.m.
On both sides of the corridor, behind the glass walls of the bedrooms, suffering lives cling silently to the respirators. Above each door, a pink sign warns caregivers: “COVID Positive”.
Since the end of January and the arrival of the first patient, the intensive care unit at Bichat hospital in the north of Paris has been welcoming patients infected with the coronavirus: on Friday, the 26 beds are occupied.
“We have reorganized internally since the end of February, the usual patients have been sent to other areas of the hospital, part of the surgical activities have been closed to release resuscitators and anesthesiologists”, says Professor Lila Bouadma .
“Our capacity will increase in the coming days,” she continues, adding that she can quickly increase to 38 beds if necessary. Provided that suitable specialist staff are found: “Currently, there is one nurse for two patients, ideally two for three patients”.
Patients arrive here via the ER or have been tested in another department. In case of respiratory failure, it has become the norm, specifies Professor Bouadma.
– Wetsuit, gloves and mask –
In front of the bedroom of a septuagenarian, Sarah Daghsen equips herself: before pushing the door, this young specialized nurse puts on a blue jumpsuit, a charlotte, gloves and puts on a mask that fully protects her eyes – possible entry door to the virus.
She will stay about 45 minutes at the bedside of her patient, suffocating under her paraphernalia, to put infusions, administer drugs. Outside, Quentin Crebessegues watches: arriving from the operating department of another Parisian hospital, he is ready to pass on the missing equipment or return the patient.
Before going out, rinsed by her intervention, Sarah Daghsen undresses according to a precise protocol, finishing with gloves, so that her skin never risks being exposed to the virus.
Last step: her mask, which she throws out in a disinfectant container. Even the waste from his intervention is disinfected for five minutes before being evacuated.
Resuscitation is a demanding specialty: at cruising speed, the service has 67 nurses, 38 caregivers, three teachers, a hospital practitioner, seven heads of clinic and a dozen interns.
“Reinforcements arrive from the operating theaters,” reports Sophie Jacques-Platt, senior health executive in charge of the logistics management of the service: over the past ten days, five people have reinforced its workforce in 24-hour increments, “and others are going to happen, “she said. Volunteers flock.
– Severe forms –
For her as for the caregivers, the scale of this crisis is completely new. “Even during the attacks (in 2015, editor’s note) … The duration was not the same”, continues Professor Bouadma.
In its more serious forms, the virus, which has killed nearly 80 people in France, exerts an unabated puncture on its victims.
At this stage, resuscitation continues between 14 and 21 days. “We do not yet know exactly when our patients stop being infectious. We do not have enough perspective. For us, the patient can go out when he is sufficiently recovered to go to another department, which he has not no more need for respiratory support – which takes a while. “
Anyway, “after 14 days of ventilation they still need time to recover, we do not recover overnight”, she insists, counting on an average duration of three weeks of hospitalization before return home, possibly via a convalescent home.
Here, the average age of the patients is 55, the youngest is 31, the oldest 83. “It can affect everyone”, notes Professor Bouadma. Some have underlying but not always serious pathologies: a slight overweight, hypertension “… The average Frenchman.
“Apart from age, we don’t know any specific risk factors”.
–
