French Hospital Understaffed: Omicron Variant Patients Soar, Delta Variant Decline

Illustration of COVID-19 in France. (Wikimedia Commons/Jacques Paquier)

JAKARTA - Emergency ward doctor Abigael Debit is increasingly spending his time searching for beds for COVID-19 patients, either at his public-private clinic outside Paris or at a nearby hospital, as the infectious variant of Omicron spreads throughout France.

Scientific data suggest a lower risk of severe disease for the Omicron variant compared to the Delta variant, but the sheer number of infections means the French healthcare system is once again under pressure, as elsewhere in Europe.

Medical personnel are exhausted and there is a staff shortage, as a result of the resignations and an increase in doctors and nurses contracting the virus and on sick leave. While fast charging wards encourage patient transfers and delays in non-emergency procedures.

"We have fewer beds in our intensive care ward, and fewer beds in our COVID ward compared to the first wave," Debit said on the sidelines of examining patients at the Saint Camille hospital where she works.

His unit accepts emergency patients who require inpatient care. COVID-19 patients occupy 10 of the 13 beds it manages. The COVID-19 ward of hospital beds is full. Ironically, about 80 percent of the patients there are not vaccinated.

For information, France reported a record 368,149 cases on Tuesday. The number of COVID-19 patients requiring hospitalization is near an 8-month high, but the exodus of staff is making it harder to provide care.

"There are staff who are on sick leave. And there are those who have resigned during the various waves of COVID, so there is real burnout," said Debit.

His hospital had to reduce the number of ICU beds it operated to seven from 13 when the epidemic first erupted.

Meanwhile, hundreds of medical workers protested in Paris on Tuesday over wages and working conditions. Unions argue the epidemic has only accelerated what they say is a years-long decline in working conditions in French hospitals.

"COVID is a convenient scapegoat, but that's not the reason why staff are exhausted. Staff have been exhausted for years," medical assistant Isabelle Pugliese told the rally.

Separately, Health Minister Olivier Veran said it was too early to know whether the Omicron surge had peaked in France.

"We still need a little time to find out whether we are approaching the current peak of COVID or not," Minister Veran told French info radio, adding that the more dangerous Delta variant is on the decline in France.

To note, President Emmanuel Macron's focus is on getting a vaccine and tightening restrictions on the freedom of the unvaccinated.