The director of the Atlantic Coast hospital group is not going four ways: “the situation is very critical” according to Pierre Thépot, who held an audio-conference press briefing this Thursday afternoon. At one level “never seen” in La Rochelle, since the start of the health crisis.
With 72 covid patients admitted to hospital, 25 of whom are in serious condition (13 are in intensive care), the situation has greatly degraded in recent days. Two weeks ago, there were 9 serious cases in the Rochelle hospital, including 3 resuscitations. This is commensurate with an epidemic that is rebounding strongly in Charente-Maritime, where the incidence rate now reaches 120 cases per 100,000 inhabitants according to ARS Nouvelle-Aquitaine.
Saturated resuscitation
The resuscitation capacities have reached saturation point. La Rochelle has 16 beds, yet 19 patients are currently in intensive care (13 for covid and 6 for other pathologies). The hospitals of Poitiers and Bordeaux have been warned that they may soon have to accept patients from Charente-Maritime.
The hospital also has to deal with clustered cases of covid in several departments simultaneously, which again had never been seen before. Admissions of new patients to these departments are suspended (the internal medicine / infectious diseases / rheumatology unit, the diabetology / nephrology unit, and the cardiology unit with full hospitalization are concerned).
Affected caregivers
And then the caregivers are also affected: 19 cases of covid last week, 26 this week, according to figures from Benoît Foucher, deputy director of GHT Littoral atlantique: “we must reorganize the hospital”, from where activation of level 2 of the white plan, in order to facilitate this reorganization. And if absenteeism continues to increase, “we do not exclude recruiting external staff, temporary workers, retirees, as we have already done” promises Pierre Thépot.
On the menu: the creation in the hospital of a second Covid unit with 30 beds. The first 24-bed unit, already created as part of a reorganization, is no longer enough It is the surgery that pays the consequences, with the deprogramming of many surgical procedures, when some urgent operations can be transferred to the Atlantic clinic. The surgical department now welcomes medical patients from emergencies. Five of the 11 operating theaters will be shut down on Monday to free up space for the intensive care.
Deprogramming in surgery
“Urgent surgical interventions, especially in oncology, are maintained” assures Doctor Thierry Godeau, who chairs the establishment medical commission. Thierry Godeau who is also pleased that the emergencies can continue to function normally. On the other hand, given the current crisis situation, the Most patient visits are suspended in La Rochelle.
Vaccination side, the hospital will have performed 2,600 injections on Friday since January 6. This includes 500 residents of nursing homes dependent on GHT (out of a thousand), 1,000 hospital health professionals (60% of the workforce) and 1,100 liberal health professionals. Given the demand for vaccines, the vaccination of health professionals will be suspended next week, a decision of the ARS that we regret in the hospital where we insist on the need to guarantee a second injection to all vaccinated.
Of deprogramming in surgery are also on the program at Rochefort hospital, which now has 10 Covid patients. Same complicated situation in the other hospital group of Charente-Maritime, at the hospital of Saintes.
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