A health situation that continues to deteriorate. In early 2025, winter viruses, especially respiratory viruses, will put the country’s hospital services under great pressure.
According to the latest French Public Health (SPF) bulletin, published on Thursday, January 2, the flu epidemic has intensified and now affects all departments of France.
“The epidemic is at its peak and I think we are not there yet. Above all, it is an epidemic that greatly affects the elderly and pathological patients who are on stretchers for hours in the emergency room every year,” he analyzes. BFMTV professor Louis Soulat, vice president of the Samu-Ergences union in France.
Mobilized personnel
In fact, at least 19 establishments have been forced in recent hours to activate their white plan to reinforce their teams in the face of the influx of new patients and have additional resources. This was, for example, the case on Monday, January 6, at the Nantes university hospital, at the Lons-le-Saunier hospital in the Jura and in several establishments in Vaucluse.
This white plan was also promoted jointly by the hospital centers of Toulon and Hyères, in the Var, two overwhelmed establishments.
At the end of last week, 250 emergency admissions were recorded in Toulon, compared to the usual 150, and a third of the patients in intensive care suffered from flu. In addition, last weekend, the Samu store had to manage 2,000 calls a day.
“There are many staff returning doing overtime and we also use temporary work. We follow the situation in the daily crisis unit to be able to adapt the organization at any time,” Yann Le Bras, general director of Toulon, told BFMTV. –La Seyne-sur-Mer Intercommunal Hospital Center.
Lack of beds and low vaccination
In Nantes, the situation is also chaotic at the city’s university hospital, where operations had to be canceled in order to treat new patients. On BFMTV, Jérémy Beurel, undersecretary of FO at Nantes University Hospital, highlights the policy followed by the hospital for years.
“We can talk about the flu epidemic, but above all we can also talk about the fact that for years we have had fewer and fewer hospital beds, fewer and fewer staff, so as soon as we have a peak of wealth. We will no longer “We can absorb it adequately, unlike a few years ago,” he says.
Another worrying fact is the relatively low rate of flu vaccination among the French most at risk. At the end of November, The health authorities had relaunched the call for vaccination against this disease.concerned about a decline in the practice.
In fact, the number of doses of flu vaccines administered had decreased by 5%, with 8 million registered then, compared to 8.4 million in the same period in 2023, according to the Federation of Pharmaceutical Unions of France, which mentioned the AFP a “bad start”. to the vaccination campaign.”
Source: BFM TV
