8. RESPIRATORS WAITING LIST
Monday 23 March 2020.
Dora is a psychomotor therapist in psychiatry. 30 years old - a smile to capsize. She lives in Lyon, loves backpacking - a year ago she left for Central America for 4 months. “Every day, we slept with the locals. And not once have we been left outside ... Generosity is not a question of means! ". The health crisis "took" her working part time for an nursing home in a suburb of Lyon. No question of confining oneself. In this functional building with climbing plants painted on the wall, out of a total of 70 residents, most of them Alzheimer's, 12 deaths have been recorded in the last 10 days.
“Deaths take place at the nursing home itself, and not at the hospital, presumably for lack of beds. Two weeks ago, a resident was sent to hospital for intensive care. She's on the mend. But at the time, around March 9, there was still room. ". Deaths in nursing homes, with the ban on families coming, that means, every day, the painful staging of the pandemic, the arrival of undertakers in "combat gear", covered from feet to feet. head and taped through all openings.
“They have FFP2 masks, whereas we only have surgical masks. I am convinced that it is the staff who infect the elderly, as well as the paramedics infect the people they transport because they too do not have an FFP2 mask. "
In this Ehpad, 18 members of the team are absent - sick or with dependent children. None are in the hospital except the husband of a caregiver, 60, with diabetes, in intensive care. No test for staff. D. was sick 10 days ago, a week in bed, she does not know if it was the coronavirus and if she is now immune and not contagious.
She refuses to go to Les Massues hospital, where she works one day a week, with children with serious illnesses, as a precaution. She was told that if she didn't have a medical certificate, she wouldn't be paid. She would rather not be paid than infect the young patients she works with. Anyway, since she works in nursing home, declaring herself sick just for the hospital would be ridiculous.
Again the tests would be welcome for everyone.
In France, the epidemic is accelerating. 16,000 cases are reported to the PCR test - 5,000 more than Friday, March 20. 7,240 hospitalized, (+ 2589), 1746 in intensive care (+ 624). As we now know, the virus, if it can have its carriers healthy, or asymptomatic, can become "overwhelming" for those who develop it. According to Dr Philippe Juin, of the Pompidou Hospital, "The virus gets deep into the lungs and prevents oxygen from spreading - resulting in suffocation. A person can arrive at the hospital standing up, be taken care of, and die within two hours. ". For him, the question of "sorting" - knowing who to treat first - is the ultimate question. The question to which we must not arrive. However, cases of respiratory assistance are up 20%, those of resuscitation by 30% and 60% of cases presenting to the emergency room must now be hospitalized. The number of beds is not increasing.
Comments