In Toulouse, pediatric emergencies at the Children’s Hospital are always full

Children’s emergencies overwhelmed, during weekdays and weekends, in April and October. Doctors haven’t heard of it. In Toulouse, the Children’s Hospital currently performs between 200 and 220 emergency visits per day. “This is not normal, it is 50% to 70% more than we should have. Normally, during this period, we do 135 visits in days,” says Professor Isabelle Claudette, Head of the Pediatric Department at the Center Hospital Universitaire (CHU) in Toulouse. week and 150 to 170 on weekends”.

“It has been like this since September but since we only talked about Covid, we forgot that the pediatric emergencies were under water. The pressure was very high for three weeks, especially in the consultations. The pediatrician, who mentioned several factors, continues that Traumatology only concerns 30% of corridors, 70% of medical visits and more than half of them are subject to free medicine.” “There is already epidemiological stress (late influenza epidemic, still coronavirus, respiratory viruses and gastroenteritis) which is also manifested in adults Thus it saturates the medical practices of the city. We also think that the financial aspect plays a role because we see families who clearly cannot afford counseling. And then, as always, there are people who are exaggerating and want medical advice right away when they can make an appointment with their doctor but in a time frame that doesn’t seem right for them.”

Consult your physician when possible.

In contrast to traditional winter periods, especially with cases of bronchiolitis, the flow of consultations does not lead to hospitalization. But the teams, not spared from epidemics, show their exhaustion.

“Common sense and the attending physician should be used first when possible. But while continuity of care should begin at 8pm on weekdays and noon on Saturdays, it is increasingly difficult to find medical clinics open at the end of the day or on Saturday mornings. Today’s doctors no longer want to work hard and demand a family life, so we have to put more guns into our services,” pleads Professor Isabel Claudette, who is anxiously awaiting the opening of the on-call medical center in Burban, near the Children’s Hospital The hospital was announced in December 2021 and still postponed.