How the emergency department at Hyères hospital is adapting after the fire

As the emergency department at Hyères General Hospital prepares, as it does every summer, to face the summer rush, with staffing levels stretched, it is now licking its wounds.

Twelve days after the incident on Monday, June 2, shortly before 7 p.m., which occurred in one of the emergency cubicles, during which four people (two caregivers, a firefighter and a patient) were poisoned, the teams are more mobilized than ever to continue providing patient care.

Despite "the ordeal they experienced," said Yann Le Bras, director of the Toulon-La Seyne Intercommunal Hospital Center (CHITS), who emphasized " their admirable reaction. They had the first reflexes that were decisive in both saving lives and containing the disaster."

He also praised the mobilization of firefighters and military reservists. He is aware, along with Sylvain Baty, the new deputy director of Hyères Hospital, and Dr. Jean-Denis Firoloni, president of the hospital's medical commission, that the worst has been avoided.

20% of support capacity impacted

"This affected the department's capacity to handle cases by 20%. This is significant, but it could have been more significant if it had affected other departments in the hospital and radiology," emphasizes Yann Le Bras.

"Currently, we have three destroyed patient care boxes and two stretcher parking areas that are unusable ," says Jean-Denis Firoloni. "We are trying to replace them with modifications we have made in the emergency department. The technical services have pulled fluids, electrical supplies and the network so that in areas where we usually only have stretchers, we can install air, oxygen and monitoring monitors."

" Apart from the fact that we have no privacy and it is not a closed unit, we have the functionality of a box ," explains Dr. Jean-Denis Firoloni.

Temporary zones to operate in normal mode

While waiting for the start of work on the damaged area, where assessments still need to be carried out, everything has been done to enable the service to operate "in normal mode and not in degraded mode".

Certainly, "with a different organizational structure," specifies the new deputy director, but the hospital (1) is functioning normally (operating theater, maternity, etc.). No other department has been affected and no activity has been canceled."

But the reception and care conditions in these areas created after the disaster are not always appreciated by patients and their loved ones.

“Everything is secure on a technical and human level.”

"It is important to understand that this is temporary, and it is an absolute necessity if we want to be able to function normally without having to divert flows and send everyone to Sainte-Musse hospital in Toulon," reassures Dr. Firoloni. The temporary zones "are secure on a technical and human level. This preserves access to emergency care for the population of the basin," specifies director Yann Le Bras. As for the disaster zone which allowed passage to radiology, it has been "isolated and sealed off," specifies Sylvain Baty.

" The teams, who were affected and tested by this incident, are adapting to this new configuration. At the same time, with the technical teams, we are doing everything we can to enable them and the patients to return to their original operating conditions. It will take a few weeks," hopes Yann Le Bras.

1. 800 professionals, 420 beds and places, 90 doctors.