While the heat of July has already caused excess mortality compared to normal, the heat wave which should hit the country in the coming days is not to reassure the French. Twenty-eight departments are now placed in “heat wave” orange vigilance from this Saturday, August 19, and the emergency situation during this holiday period is particularly “tense”. However, the Minister of Health Aurélien Rousseau wants to be reassuring, saying that the “hospital will cope” and that the current emergency situation is not “more serious” than in 2022.
“The hospital has coped, the hospital will cope, […] the organization of the health system, it is extremely robust and it will be robust in the face of this heat episode,” said Minister of Health Aurélien Rousseau on France info. In hospitals, forced to close or “filter” the entrance to many emergency services in the face of a lack of caregivers, practitioners fear a new influx of patients. Several representatives of emergency physicians this week judged the extent of these closures “more serious” than in 2022.
“It’s true […] that we have areas of tension everywhere on the territory, but today we anticipate them better. “The passage through the 15th means that no Frenchman who needs treatment has remained without a medical answer”, assured Aurélien Rousseau.
He recalled “the reflex” to have: “At the slightest discomfort, […] we call 15.” This summer, “hospitals and in particular university hospitals played their role as a platform and support for smaller hospitals which , sometimes just can’t hold on.”
