However, current attendance does not set a new record, according to information from health authorities. “The volumes of visits to the emergency room and SOS Doctors consultations (all causes) are close to the observations of previous years,” noted the national agency Public Health France, in its latest Breton surveillance bulletin, on December 27.
Since the health crisis of 2020 and the sudden drop in emergency room attendance, the number of visits has remained lower than that observed in 2019. That year, 957,000 people were treated. In 2023, there were 924,000. The trend is consistent with what we observe at the national level
“Between 1996 and 2019, visits to emergency rooms in France more than doubled,” points out a study by Drees, the statistical service dedicated to health, published in December. “However, progression slowed from 2016”, before the fall in 2020. “After a new rebound in 2022, passages decreased in 2023 to return to a level close to 2017.”
From 1,900 to 3,200 passages per day
Behind these global trends, what about seasonal peaks? Unpublished figures for passages per day, published in parallel, allow us to observe this. Excluding the peak of the health crisis and its record low attendance (less than 1,500 patients per day in Breton emergencies, a figure never reached in normal times), some days recorded fewer than 2,000 visits over the period 2017-2023, in Brittany. On average, over seven days, 2,300 daily passages correspond to the least busy periods. A level observed on numerous occasions in 2017… and in 2023.
On the busiest days, more than 2,800 daily passages, on a weekly average, are recorded. The busiest day remains Monday. Some days, up to 3,200 patients present at the emergency room in Brittany. This was particularly the case in spring 2022, a year marked by “an exceptionally late epidemic peak” of influenza, recalls Public Health France. Before that, 2019 reached such levels, in July. Two heat peaks had led to an increase.
Daily peaks not reserved for winter
The average attendance over each month shows that seasonality is not identical over the years, depending on winter epidemics. It also confirms that difficulties can exist without a record peak, in a context of staff shortages. “Since April 2023, regulation has become a norm. We refuse to get used to this standard,” pointed out, in October, unions at the Center-Bretagne hospital in Noyal-Pontivy (56).
The fact remains that although the increase is less, the number of passages remains high. The fault of the visits which do not justify it? Partially: in 2022, the Court of Auditors had 16%, in France, concerning a situation not requiring additional action. However, the report also pointed to difficulties with exit. An indicator set up in the Grand Est “confirms that the number of admissions is not the only factor influencing the saturation of the emergency structure; this is even more the result of insufficient availability of downstream beds than of an excess of entries into the service. » A problem that was precisely highlighted, in January 2023, by the head of emergencies at Rennes University Hospital.
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