Epidemic: patients on oxygen at home to relieve hospitals

Under oxygen in his sofa. It has been the daily life of François Latu for almost three weeks. At 54, sick with Covid, he spent ten days in the hospital. Being able to be taken care of at home is a relief. “It lifts the anxieties. it helps to lower the pressure. Because the hospital is good, but we don’t get much rest. And, it is very reassuring not to be let loose in nature, once you are out of the hospital especially ”, he rejoices.

Every day, nurses come to take his data and send this data to the Argenteuil hospital. It is always doctors who decide on the management of the patient. Juliette Moussel, health executive at the Health and Services foundation explains: “These are patients who are stabilized in their care but remain fragile, and above all, require close monitoring”. To her to add: “We have 70 patients in charge which allows, roughly, to free up two hospital departments”. This is the whole point: unloading saturated hospitals.

In the Argenteuil emergency department, this system made it possible to halve the stay of patients, from eight to four days on average, as for this patient. “At home, she’s still better. More reassured if I am at home with my partner, ”he jubilates. Over the past two weeks, the number of patients treated at home has doubled. For caregivers at the hospital, it is the hope of not reliving the nightmare of the first wave. With the advancement of knowledge about the Covid, hospitalization is no longer the rule. But the alternatives are still too little used. “There is a tendency in France to keep patients in hospital who could be completely released. We have an extremely wide field of practices. We have a vision that is still very hospitable ”, specifies Élisabeth Hubert, president of the National Federation of home hospitalization establishments. Last year, in 2020, 160,000 people were hospitalized.