The coronavirus epidemic situation in Île-de-France is highly worrying. As the incidence rate skyrockets, coming days are feared by hospitals. This Thursday March 25, 2021 during the latest press brief, Health Minister Olivier Véran already announced 80% of non-Covid interventions are cancelled in order to attend the flow of patients developing severe coronavirus.
In an opinion column released this Sunday March 28, 2021 in Journal du Dimanche, a column signed by forty AP-HP crisis medical directors considers the ICU capacity is to be exceeded. And for good reason, patients with severe Covid-19 take longer to recover. Caring is therefore longer, and the arrival of new patients can quickly exceed the number of discharges.
“We cannot stay silent without betraying the Hippocratic oath we once taken”. The sentence shows how serious the dilemma on the horizon is for the medical corps. Ile-de-France hospitals’ saturation will lead doctors to sort out patients admitted in intensive care, whether they have Covid or not. A very feared situation in France since the beginning of the crisis likely to occur for the first time during the third wave. For the record, in other countries, such as in Italy, doctors have already faced this situation.
It roughly means that if a 30-year-old patient and another 50-year-old patient must be hospitalized, and there is one bed left, the 50-year-old case might be denied attending. A tough situation that will lead to increasing death toll because of hospitals’ saturation.
