Covid-19: the dreaded postponement of surgical operations becomes inevitable

One by one, the territories most affected by the epidemic have seen the dreaded instruction fall in recent days: surgical operations must be deprogrammed to strengthen the teams dedicated to Covid patients. In Île-de-France and Auvergne Rhône-Alpes, in Hauts-de-France as well as in Marseille, Strasbourg or Occitanie, the announcements followed one another as the second wave overwhelmed us.

Notable difference with last spring, the decision is now taken at the local level, underlined the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, Thursday. Presumably to avoid the excess of counterproductive zeal that had left medical teams unnecessarily idle and patients in need of care during the first wave.

Thus the regional health agency (ARS) of Île-de-France circulated to hospital management on Monday the instruction to accelerate deprogramming to reach by Friday 1775 critical care beds (resuscitation and monitoring