The dynamism of seasonal flu and other respiratory illnesses this winter is putting hospitals under strain almost everywhere in France, even if the scale of the epidemic remains to be determined.
Although the Ministry of Health is unable to provide an estimate of the number of hospitals in "white plan", at least twenty hospitals in France have activated them in response to the influx of patients in their emergency departments, according to a count made by AFP based on information published online by the establishments or the administration.
These plans allow hospitals to take exceptional measures to cope with an influx of patients, such as rescheduling certain operations, reassigning or recalling staff on leave.
According to several sources, this count is probably an underestimate. "In the Pays-de-la-Loire alone, we have 6 blank plans," Dominique Savary, head of the Angers Emergency Department, told AFP.
"We have the feeling that it is stronger than usual," comments Agnes Ricard-Hibon, spokesperson for the Samu-Urgences de France (SUDF) union, which is going to launch an investigation to quantify the phenomenon.
– “Inhuman tensions” –
"The main problem is the lack of hospital beds, as always," she continues, calling for "anticipating" these "predictable winter crises." "We need to reserve a number of beds in the services for emergency activity," a "known" solution that is slow to be implemented, she regrets.
The situation is causing suffering for staff, such as at the Nantes University Hospital, which launched a white plan on Monday. In an open letter to management, the FO union denounced waiting times now reaching 20 to 30 hours and a "context of inhuman tensions where several elderly patients are desperately waiting for a bed."
In the emergency services and healthcare access services (SAS) that respond to calls to "15", "activity is up from 10 to 15%", and in "many places", the average time for answering calls exceeds one minute, deplores Jean-François Cibien, emergency physician in Agen and vice-president of SUDF.
The new Minister of Health Yannick Neuder, interviewed in Rennes on the sidelines of a trip, acknowledged that this multiplication of white plans "reflects the state of tension in which our health system finds itself". "One of my priorities will be to promote everything that can produce care on the territory", to "avoid systematic recourse to emergency services".
– Epidemic “in the high range”? –
The flu epidemic appears dynamic, but its exact scale remains to be determined. "Looking at the figures, it's not monstrous, but we are in an epidemic size that will probably be in the high range this season," virologist Bruno Lina, member of Covars (committee for monitoring and anticipating health risks), told AFP.
"In young adults, the H1N1 virus is striking, with fairly marked clinical forms," including people who "are sometimes in bed for 48 or 72 hours, with the impression of being exhausted to the point of not being able to get up," he adds.
He notes that after children and those under 50, the elderly, who are at greater risk of hospitalization, are increasingly affected.
For Marie-Anne Rameix-Welti, head of the National Reference Centre for Respiratory Infections (Pasteur Institute), the intensity of the epidemic is "comparable to previous years", but "we do not yet know if we have reached the peak. We will have to see what happens in the next two weeks".
On the other hand, "this year, there is no overlap with other viruses such as RSV (the main virus causing bronchiolitis), which has decreased, and Covid, which is low," she adds.
In France, the entire metropolitan area fell into a flu epidemic situation in the wake of Christmas, with the threshold of 173 cases per 100,000 inhabitants being passed. This is a little earlier than in previous years.
For the last week of 2024, influenza-like syndromes represented 18.2% of emergency room visits, 4.9% of emergency room visits and 4.2% of hospitalizations after emergency room visits, according to Public Health France.
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