Blown out windows, flooded services and destroyed equipment: on a hill overlooking the capital of Mayotte, the Mamoudzou hospital (CHM) is still suffering the heavy consequences of the passage of cyclone Chido. Despite considerable damage, the establishment continues to function as best it can.
Around 10,000 births per year: the Mamoudzou maternity hospital is the largest in France. It is therefore not surprising that on Saturday, in the middle of the crisis, four deliveries took place despite the chaotic conditions, says Roger Serhal, head of the hospital's obstetrics department. One of them required a caesarean, but the operating room was flooded.
After some hesitation, "a lot of effort and a bit of risk", the woman gave birth naturally and her baby was born healthy. The doctors and staff at the Mamoudzou hospital have plenty of stories like this.
In the maternity ward, gusts of wind ripped off a door, flooding the corridors and breaking windows. In the panic, caregivers had to take about forty patients to safety in a small secure room in the delivery room.
Marked faces, drawn features and sometimes a little tension: the Mamoudzou hospital is still on the alert four days after Chido's passage.
– Lack of medication –
Entire sectors of the CHM are still unusable. In the corridors of the pathological pregnancy department, electricians are busy restoring rooms to the near-indifference of caregivers and expectant mothers. In the intensive care unit, it is the windows that have been broken.
What is lacking are medicines. While the first orders arrived "very quickly" after the cyclone, more is needed: "Our stock of medicines in Longoni was destroyed at 70%," Mr. Defour said.
The Interior Ministry announced that "many services at the Mayotte Hospital Center (CHM) are inoperative" even though the service is gradually resuming, citing emergencies for which an advanced medical post has been set up at the entrance to the establishment.
Face marked by four days of non-stop work, the head of the intensive care unit and crisis medical officer, Vincent Gilles, salutes the teams mobilized "with astonishing energy at the height of the events."
In the first hours after the cyclone, his teams received the injured in absolute emergency. Then came trauma, fractures. "Now, we have more chronic diseases, people who did not have access to care, and this is what is starting to rise very strongly," explains the doctor.
Since communications have not been re-established, some employees are still unreachable. About three hundred out of the 3,000 agents of the CHM, which has several branches in different sectors of Mayotte.
– Want to leave –
Some agents also let their moods show, even their desire to leave: many lost their homes in the cyclone but have been at work for four days, with no prospect of improvement. Security problems on some CHM sites, with attempted looting, have been noted.
The problems at the CHM are not new: in June, around fifty doctors in white coats demonstrated in front of the establishment to warn of the lack of caregivers, denouncing nights without doctors at the SAMU.
But this crisis will last. "Where it will be hot is in the coming weeks with gastroenteritis diseases, hygiene issues," whispers a doctor.
In a wing of the CHM, the tent for receiving patients suspected of having cholera – the epidemic was declared over in Mayotte in July – is being reassembled.
English 
French