emergencies are saturated, a crisis meeting in progress at Rouen University Hospital

Wednesday January 8, 2024, a crisis meeting is underway at the Rouen University Hospital (Seine-Maritime) to deal with the influx of patients in the emergency room, due to the flu epidemic. Around ten additional beds should be open by the end of the week.

1,500 calls per day to the regulation service on 15 at Rouen University Hospital, that's as many as during the Covid-19 period. In the hospital emergency room, the number of patients received increased from an average of 220 per day to 280. The service is saturated.

“All emergency and continuing care services in the region are saturated and people wait a very long time on stretchers to be hospitalized. Hours, sometimes days”deplores Dr Fabrice Venier, regional representative of AMUF, Association of Emergency Doctors of France, and himself an emergency doctor at Samu and at Rouen University Hospital.

This influx of calls is due to the winter flu. Normandy has had to do this for several weeks, the white plan has already been triggered at the hospital in Lisieux (Calvados) but also in Dieppe (Seine-Maritime).

And this is likely to continue, because the peak of the flu epidemic has not yet been reached in Normandy. The hospital management is organizing a crisis meeting this Wednesday noon. She plans to open 10 additional beds by the end of the week.

Find the report by Magali Nicolin and Bruno Belamri:

The situation is all the more difficult to manage as some of the general practitioners who came to provide telephone on-call duty have been on strike since December 23.

The strikers are demanding in particular an increase in the fees of private regulatory doctors, who volunteer to answer calls several hours a week alongside emergency doctors.

“The strike movement is renewed for an indefinite period”, even if the treatment of patients continues, declared Fabrice Venier, regional representative of AMUF, Association of Emergency Doctors of France, and himself an emergency doctor at Samu and at the Rouen University Hospital.

“There is a combination of school holidays, staff vacations, a reduction in the provision of care in general in the city and in hospitals. All of this, right in a period during which we have a little more of sick people, not always in serious condition, but who want to have a consultation, which increases the waiting time in the emergency room”, explained Dr Jean-Philippe Leroy, public health doctor at Rouen University Hospital in our article of January 2, 2025.

The doctor nevertheless specifies that if the epidemic is not more virulent this year, it can however last longer, and is accompanied by an epidemic of respiratory syncytial viruses (RSV) such as bronchiolitis, dangerous for the elderly. already fragile.

Unlike last year, it is the A/H1N1 virus which is mainly circulating this year. It affects young people more, hence this impression of an epidemic more present in our surroundings.

“Last year it was the H3N2 virus which was present and which mainly affected the elderly. This population undoubtedly tends to talk about it less, they stay at home more and are perhaps more used to handle the problem.”

The flu vaccination campaign began on October 15, 2024 in France. But she seems to be going backwards.

“Last year we saw a drop of 3% to 5% in people getting vaccinated against the flu, and it is very likely that this year it will be the same thing. People are reluctant to do it, and we find ourselves with a virus that circulates a lot”, adds Dr. Jean-Philippe Leroy.

Vaccination is recommended for people at risk of developing a serious form of the flu, such as those over 65, pregnant women or people with obesity.