How Deprogramming of Care Affects (Other) Patients

In France, 93,000 people have died from the coronavirus since the start of the epidemic. But this is only one of the deadly aspects of the health situation. Due to the saturation of hospitals and the massive occupation of resuscitation beds – more than 100% of the capacities before March 2020 in many regions – the coronavirus is causing the postponement of many operations for other diseases, in order to to reduce the capacity of hospitals to this single epidemic.

This Tuesday, the Director General of the Regional Health Agency (ARS) of Ile-de-France, Aurélien Rousseau, set a new target of 2,200 critical care beds for Covid patients for the region, requiring more deprogram 80% of other treatments. Deprogramming already undertaken during the first and the second wave.

A survey carried out by the Viavoice Institute for France Assos Santé in November 2020 indicated that nearly half of French people (47%) have had care canceled and / or postponed since the start of the health crisis. Among these deprogrammed patients, 56% did not have an alternative solution proposed by the medical profession, 24% report a worsening of their symptoms and a deterioration in their state of health, and 11% have a feeling of depression and anxiety. increased.

Understandable, but not acceptable

Technically, it is the less urgent operations that are deprogrammed first, reassures Doctor Jérôme Marty, president of the Syndicat Union Française pour une Médecine Libre. But by dint of seeing the coronavirus increasingly saturate hospitals, “we inevitably end up deprogramming increasingly important operations. “A choice which becomes critical with the succession of waves, with” certain operations postponed for more than a year “, regrets the doctor.

For those concerned, a feeling of abandonment dominates. “We are the big ones forgotten by the epidemic, deplores Camille *, 63 years old and suffering from cancer. Today, in the fifth world power, we cannot treat everyone, and we put people aside ”. She says she understands the calculation: coronavirus patients in intensive care will certainly die without care, while for her, there is hope, even if the operation is postponed. Nevertheless, she fears a new time lag, after those of the first and second waves: “There is a bet made on our health to treat that of others, more urgent. I am willing to try to understand it, but that remains unacceptable and unacceptable ”.

Political and media abandonment

Fear invaded him more and more: “At night, I have nightmares about my tumors which are increasing and developing. They should have been processed as early as April 2020 and were only processed in June. Result, metastases two months later. We go crazy thinking about all this time wasted on the disease. “For Antoine *, 43 years old, whose liver operation was postponed because of these deprogramming, bitterness follows anguish:” France boasts of having escaped an Italian situation, with patients neat in the corridors for lack of space. But what does she do with us, other than leave us sick at home? France failed the moment it stopped taking care of everyone ”.

Beyond the medical abandonment, it is a political and media abandonment that these patients feel. “We are the dust hidden under the carpet, breathes Camille. On the pretext that we are not going to die immediately, we do not care about our fate. She wonders: why not put the number of operations canceled or postponed in the reports of Public Health France? Why so few politicians mention this problem, why such recklessness? “When Emmanuel Macron talks about having more intensive care beds for Covid patients, he forgets that it means fewer operations for us,” says Antoine. All the more so since this choice is fraught with consequences according to him: “The real crap of this disease, that’s it, hospital saturation. I’m not saying at all that we must stop treating Covid patients, but to take containment measures before arriving at deprogramming. “

What long-term consequences?

Impossible, today, to fully measure the health catastrophe linked to these deprogramming, as their number and their consequences are difficult to estimate – a fortiori with the current third wave. “We will only measure the scope in several years, with strong resentment at that time,” fears Jérôme Marty. “But it will be too late! “, Antoine gets angry.

According to a study by the Unicancer federation, delays in the care of cancer patients, during the first wave of Covid-19 alone, could cause an excess of deaths of 1,000 to 6,000 patients in the years to come. This, without even taking into account the following waves. The National Cancer League estimates that 93,000 screenings could not be carried out in 2020 because of the coronavirus. And this is only one of the many diseases impacted by deprogramming. Camille concludes bitterly: “I hope that we too will be mourned”.

* First names have been changed