Covid-19: Ile-de-France, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Occitanie … white plans are multiplying in hospitals – Le Monde

Sign that the pressure of the fifth epidemic wave of Covid-19 is increasing on the hospital, it is the turn of Ile-de-France to take a higher step. The director general of the regional health agency (ARS), Amélie Verdier, asked on the evening of Wednesday, December 8 all public and private establishments in the Ile-de-France region to reactivate their white plans as of Thursday, December 9.

In practice, this involves allowing hospitals to reorganize themselves, review staff schedules, call back caregivers on their leave, or even initiate the deprogramming of other non-emergency patients, in order to free up staff to strengthen the capacities of services receiving the influx of Covid-19 patients.

Since the start of the week, announcements have multiplied everywhere in France: the white plans have been reactivated in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Occitanie, or even in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté and in Pays de la Loire. “The white plan will probably be national within a few days”, said Olivier Véran, Minister of Health, on France 2, Thursday, December 9.

Rennes, Strasbourg, Grenoble, Lille, Bordeaux … At least two-thirds of the 30 university hospital centers (CHU) have already reactivated this crisis operation, according to the conference of presidents of the medical commission of CHU establishments, as have many regional hospitals, in Colmar, in Le Mans, in Saint-Malo (Ille-et-Vilaine)… An acceleration due to the progression of the epidemic, with 2,426 Covid-19 patients in the critical care services which welcome patients with the most serious forms, but also to the shortage of nursing staff from which many establishments have suffered since the start of the school year, not to mention the concomitance with other winter epidemics.

“Beds closed due to lack of staff”

In Ile-de-France, the deterioration of Covid-19 indicators has been clear since mid-November: 2,608 Covid-19 patients were hospitalized there on December 8, including 505 in critical care. To the hospital, “The dynamic is clearly on the rise but remains for the moment more favorable than during the first four waves thanks to the vaccination coverage (86% of eligible Ile-de-France residents have a complete vaccination schedule)”, specifies the ARS.

If the number of patients is still far from what the region has known since the start of the epidemic crisis, the first level on critical care has been reached, with 30% of beds occupied by Covid-19 patients, indicates the ” ARS Ile-de-France in a letter to the establishments, while specifying that it is necessary to take into account “With an average of 15% of beds closed for lack of staff”. It is now “To anticipate the gradual rise in the number of Covid patients and to prepare as best as possible with all staff for the organization of establishments during the holiday season”, according to the ARS, which insists on the need to preserve end-of-year leave.

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