Already exhausted, hospitals and nurses are only encountering the very first steps of the third Covid-19 epidemic wave. This is what says the Bobigny Avicenne hospital intensive care unit professor. Interviewed by France info about the hospital pressure, he explains nurses are now “completely exhausted” and yet are not as supported by the government as they were during the wave one and two, in 2020.
But the most worrying is the length of this third wave. The ICU head says the regions involved are about to experience “eight to twelve weeks of very, very intense activity in hospitals”. For the time being, in his intensive care unit set in Seine-Saint-Denis – one of the hardest-hit departments in France – the occupancy rate reaches 150%. Even worse, Covid patient admissions are to peak by “two to three weeks”. Which is more or less the date considered by the government to start lifting restrictions in the hardest-hit areas.
Furthermore, Pr. Stéphane Gaudry affirms that “there has been clear escalation for the past ten day including an always-more worrying situation”. From now on, forecasts no longer are relevant, “we are in complete incapacity of attending sick in intensive care coming from outside the hospital” because of the global occupancy rate flying far above the maximum threshold. In ICU, not only in his hospital, but in all other similar services in Île-de-France, the professor says that “things are to get worse in ICU by the next two weeks”.
Covid in Île-de-France: “The epidemic is getting carried away”, nurses worried facing the third wave
Doctors and health professionals have been warning about the pending outbreak of a third Covid-19 epidemic wave for weeks, especially in Île-de-France, the hardest-hit region. As the population complies with a new lockdown, hospital units are being overwhelmed and the incidence rate keeps on increasing. Caregivers assume they are close to the “breaking point”. [Read more]
