The public hospital is "holding up" and "the situation remains manageable" despite the tensions caused by the combination of the flu epidemic, bad weather and the strike by private doctors, the French Hospital Federation, which represents French public hospitals, assured on Tuesday.
The FHF identified 28 "white plans" (crisis plan, editor's note) in public hospitals last week, based on a sample that is not complete but nevertheless includes a good portion of the 135 French hospital groups of territory (GHT), which include university hospitals and the largest hospital centers, it indicated.
The FHF also identified 108 "establishments under pressure" last week, according to its figures.
In total, 49% facilities experienced an increase in activity in their emergency services last week, she indicated.
"Our assessment is that we are in a manageable situation, the public hospital is holding up well," said Vincent Ollivier, deputy head of supply at the FHF, during the institution's traditional beginning-of-year press conference.
"But the situation remains fragile in terms of bed saturation, particularly in medicine for the elderly," he said.
"There is a low availability of downstream beds" from the emergency department, with "difficulty in organizing discharges to nursing homes or medical and rehabilitation care facilities," he added.
For FHF officials, last week's strike by private doctors is only the third factor in the overload of public hospitals, behind epidemics (flu and bronchiolitis) and bad weather.
In any case, strike by private doctors or not, "the continuity of care relies very largely on the public hospital which provides 85% of care at night and on weekends, in epidemic periods as well as outside periods of tension," said Arnaud Robinet, the president of the FHF.
"Certain climatic, health, and social events may temporarily increase the pressure, but they only reveal a structural reality: the public hospital is permanently on the front line," he said.
Liberal doctors, unhappy with "political choices that trample them," have been called to strike from January 5th until the 15th by their unions and representative organizations.
The climax of the strike is expected at the beginning of this week, with the planned closure of many operating rooms in private clinics.
According to the French emergency medical services union, Samu Urgences de France, calls to the emergency medical services (SAMU) increased from 30 to 501 at the beginning of last week. Some emergency physicians reported a level of activity in their departments "unprecedented" since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
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