Faced with the influx of patients, the Villeneuve-Saint-Georges hospital is reinventing itself

Faced with the third wave of the Covid-19 epidemic hitting France hard, hospitals are increasingly under pressure with the influx of new patients. The Villeneuve-Saint-Georges (Val-de-Marne) hospital has therefore set up a temporary resuscitation unit in a corridor. “This requires more supply of electricity, more supply of oxygen”, explains Jean-François Goerger, head of the intensive care unit at this Ile-de-France hospital. Five additional bedrooms have been opened there. In fact, the biomedical teams were forced to work for several weeks on very specific points.

Despite all the equipment, these rooms can only accommodate patients whose condition remains stable. Other patients should be cared for in one of the 18 standard resuscitation rooms, located on the other side of the building. Having 23 intensive care beds instead of 18 requires some non-emergency operations to be deprogrammed. “Patients are safe because we have trained teams”, assures Sylvie Fondaneche, senior health executive. Every day, doctors still have to organize the transfer of certain patients to other hospitals.